


Once Upon a Beanstalk

by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Jack and the Beanstalk fusion, Angst, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Crack Treated Seriously, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gardens & Gardening, Geese, Goats, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Reference to Past Possibility of Sexual Assault, M/M, Marvel Cameos, Minor Violence, POV Multiple, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Revisionist Fairy Tale, Swan Prince Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-17 05:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16968999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkeygreen/pseuds/leveragehunters
Summary: Everyone knew how the story went: climb the beanstalk, brave the terrible giant, and if you were lucky and clever and quick you could come away with fortune enough to change your world. If you weren't…well, not every story had a happy ending.Bucky's problem was that his story had gone wrong before it started. He wasn't braving the giant for a chance at fortune, he was climbing the beanstalk to save his skin—ironic, when he knew the giant was probably going to stomp him flat.Except he didn't. Didn't stomp him flat, didn't send him back down the beanstalk, didn't act much like a terrible giant at all. He was kind in a way Bucky didn't know how to deal with because everyone knew that wasn't how the world worked. But Bucky was slowly coming to understand that at the top of a beanstalk nothing was what it seemed and that sometimes, with enough determination, what everyone knew could be changed completely.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a fill for my Happy Steve Bingo prompt 'Rooftop/indoor farming for novices' (rather stretching rooftop to the breaking point, I admit) and then it turned into _this_ so I don't even know anymore. It was intended to be 7k of silliness. Now it's 31k of *points down* 
> 
> Also: Happy New Year's Eve!

"You can run but you can’t hide!"

Bucky wasn’t sure he could even _run_ , at least not fast enough to get away. The angry goose he'd shoved in his bag was barely staying put under his arm, her gold-limned wings flapping madly under the canvas, and the ground—could you really call it ground when it looked _and felt_ like puffy clouds?—was shaking under his feet as the giant pounded after him.

He'd known he couldn't do this. He'd known this was stupid— _beyond_ stupid, since he wasn’t truly a thief, even if the weight of evidence was stacked against him. He'd only ever stolen what Lord Pierce had forced him to steal, and even a proper thief would have been a fool to try and steal from the giant in the clouds.

Bucky guessed that made _him_ a desperate goddamned fool, one who was about to die crushed under the feet of a furious giant as he tried to find the beanstalk and his only chance of escape. He choked back hysterical laughter, since _not dying_ was the only reason he’d climbed the damned beanstalk in the first place.

"I’ll grind your bones to make my bread," the giant bellowed, fist slamming into the ground inches from where Bucky had been. Bucky's desperate lunge forward jarred the canvas bag and the goose tore free.

With an evil hiss she went for Bucky’s eyes. He fended her off, managed to loop the ripped canvas over her head as she hissed and honked and struggled.

A wing slapped him in the face, the cloud-ground shook as the giant pounded closer and loomed over him, thrice his height and thrice his width, growling, "Alive or dead, I’ll grind your bones to make my bread," and Bucky just…stopped.

It was hopeless. There was no escape. But if this was it? He'd be damned if he'd go out cringing.

He was terrified down to his guts, fear sizzling through his marrow, but he dug down for his most charming smile and practically _threw_ _it_ at the giant as he turned. "Now how's that going to work?"

The giant stared down at him, huge brows furrowing in confusion.

Bucky guessed questions weren't the usual reaction. "I mean, sure, right, bone grinding, I bet you’re great at it, but bones are wet." He grimaced. "I’m no expert in bread making, but that sounds like it'd make for some pretty lousy bread. You’d be better off with wheat or," he cast around in his limited knowledge of grains, "or barley or something. Not bones. Maybe you could trade them?"

The giant blinked enormous blue eyes.

Bucky took it as a good sign—anything that didn’t involve being turned into a fine paste was a good sign at this point—and kept going. "I bet you could get a great deal in the whole bone/bread market. Ground, unground. It’s not like anyone’s going to say no to you."

With a gusting sigh, the giant leaned down. Bucky couldn’t help flinching, couldn’t help closing his eyes. He didn’t want to see it coming. Fist, foot, teeth, whatever it was going to be, he didn’t want to see it.

They popped open in surprise a few moments later when a voice, deep enough to rattle his chest, said, "Please give back my goose."

The giant was holding out his hand, which was big enough to engulf Bucky from knees to neck.

Gingerly, Bucky set the goose in it. She shook off the canvas, hissed at Bucky, then rubbed her gleaming head affectionately against the giant's thumb.

"Thanks."

It was Bucky's turn to blink, mind suddenly blank, but well-honed survival instincts kicked in and made his mouth say, "Uh, you’re welcome."

The giant nodded.

Bucky's survival instincts were assessing the situation, studying the giant, and for all that he was _giant_ he was shaped like a man. And if _shaped_ like a man meant _thought and felt_ like a man, he didn't look angry. Bucky took a chance. "Does this mean you’re not going to grind my bones?"

An expression Bucky didn't know how to read momentarily appeared and vanished just as fast. "No. You can go."

Bucky should have been carolling his relief to the blue sky that stretched above, only he wasn't, because he couldn’t.

If he went back without the goose he’d be killed. Not just killed; he'd be skinned alive and hung up as a lesson for others about what happened to people who failed Lord Pierce.   

It must have shown on his face.

"What’s wrong?" the giant asked, and Bucky startled, skittering backwards.

"Nothing." Bucky squared his shoulders. "Can you point me to the beanstalk?"

The giant frowned at him, but he pointed. Bucky squinted, and now that he wasn’t fleeing for his life while he wrestled with an angry goose, he could see the distant stalk. "Right. Thanks. For letting me go and for skipping the whole bone grinding thing."

The giant nodded, and Bucky started walking.

Distance was strange up here. He'd noticed that when he'd first climbed up. The beanstalk he’d barely been able to see while he was running was, very quickly, too quickly, looming before him, green tip curling through the clouds that had pulled aside to make room for it.

All he had to do was climb down. His stomach did a slow roll. He knew Lord Pierce’s men would be waiting at the bottom, just like they'd waited while Bucky had planted the seeds. Just like they'd waited through the night while the beanstalk had grown. He swallowed hard at the thought and leaned over, a hand on the thick green stalk for balance. The ground was a long way down.

Maybe he should just jump. It'd be faster.

A giant hand smacked down in front of him, blocking the hole in the fluffy clouds and squashing the beanstalk, and he scrambled backwards, heart pounding.

"Tell me what’s wrong." The giant was right above him. Glaring down at him. Bucky’s heart raced. He couldn’t speak, his mouth dry, and the giant's expression slowly changed. Gentled. He crouched down low. "I’m not going to hurt you," he said quietly.

It took Bucky a few tries to get words out. "Why not?"

"Why would I?"

Now Bucky stared at him, fear washed away by incredulity. Did the giant think he was _stupid_? "I climbed your beanstalk, I tried to steal your goose. I didn't make it. You're the giant in the clouds. Do you think the ones who make it back don't talk? People know who you are."

"Steve."

"What?"

"That's who I am. That's my name."

"What?"

"My name? I trust you’re familiar with the concept."

"Yes, but…"

Both huge eyebrows lifted.

"Right."

"I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not interested in hurting you. Not that I expect you to believe me, but I'm not interested in hurting anyone. What I am interested in is why you looked more frightened of going down the beanstalk than you did when I was chasing you."

Bucky swallowed hard. "If you’re not interested in hurting me, why were you chasing me? What was with all the ‘grind your bones to make my bread’ business?"

"The goose you stole was the one goose you can't take. And as for grinding your bones… It’s a good threat. Scary. More effective than just yelling, 'I'm going to kill you'." Bucky stared at him. The corner of his mouth ticked up. "Don't worry about it." Bucky suddenly found his stare being intently returned. "And you still haven’t answered my question."

"You didn’t ask me a question." Maybe he was playing with fire, but he…didn’t think so. The giant's eyes might be the same blue as Lord Pierce's, but there was no sign of Lord Pierce's ice.  

Steve leaned forward, massive height and bulk curving over Bucky as he planted a hand next to Bucky’s feet. It took all Bucky’s courage to hold still. "What’s waiting for you at the bottom of your beanstalk that’s got you so scared?"

"My own stupidity." He twisted his hands in his shirt. "Nothing more, nothing less."

"I need a little more to go on than that." Bucky darted a glance up. The smallest smile—comparatively; it was still as wide as Bucky's arm—was tugging at Steve’s lips. "I already know you’re a bit stupid." It wasn’t mocking, it wasn’t cruel. It was gentle teasing. "You have to be to try and steal from a giant."

"Yeah," Bucky agreed on a breath of pained laughter, because there wasn’t any arguing with it. "I made a deal with the wrong man. I made it for the right reasons, but it was a bad deal. And once I made one deal, I had to make another and another and another and then I was in too deep. This, your goose, it was supposed to clear it all, but it was all or nothing. Come back with the goose that lays the golden eggs or—" He stopped, started again. "It was my chance, even it wasn’t a very good one. But I figured my chances of getting out of here alive were better than my chances with Lord Pierce."

Steve twitched at the name, something dark floating through his eyes. "He’s what's waiting for you."

"His men. Yeah. They will be."

"They’ll kill you."

"Eventually."

"Right." Steve sat up. "Then you’ll have to stay here."

"I'll have to…" Bucky shook his head, trying to make sense of the words. "I'll have to what?"

"Stay here. I’m not letting you go down the beanstalk to die."

There was a rumble in Steve's voice, enough to make the leaves on the beanstalk shiver. Bucky wanted to join them. "I'm your prisoner?"

"No, you're not my—" Steve pinched the bridge of his nose with his enormous thumb and forefinger. "Look, what’s your name?"

"Bucky."

"Not Jack?"

There was a joke there Bucky wasn't getting, so he just said, "No."

"Right. Bucky. I'm inviting you to stay. Eventually the men waiting for you will decide you died up here. Right?"

Slowly, Bucky nodded.

"And then you'll be safe to leave."

 _That_ Bucky wasn't sure about, but he eventually nodded again. He didn't think Steve's sharp eyes had missed his hesitation, but he didn't call him on it.

"Then stay here 'til then."

"What happens if I say no?"

Steve sat up, way up, towering over him, and regarded him steadily. "I don’t know."  

The honesty surprised him. Bucky didn't know why Steve would care if he lived or died, wasn't sure he actually did, and he didn't know what would happen to him if he stayed here… But he did know what happened if he climbed down that beanstalk without a golden-egg laying goose.

"I'll stay."

*    *    *

Steve had never had a guest before. Oh, sure, Sam and Nat had stayed in the castle so many times he'd lost count, but they weren't _guests._ And Sam and Nat _knew him_ , knew who he was, knew what he was—or more to the point, what he _wasn't—_ so that was the only way they ever saw him.

The Jacks who planted their beans and climbed their beanstalks, though—they knew a terrible giant was waiting for them and so the castle's magic gave them exactly what they expected to find. For them, Steve was a giant, just like he was for Bucky, for all that Bucky wasn't, precisely, a Jack (and Steve would really like to know where he'd gotten his handful of beans, but that wasn't a question for now, not with Bucky so skittish).

This was going to be a pain. Bucky had expected a giant, he'd found a giant, and so a giant Steve would remain. He'd never been a giant for longer that it took the Jacks to come and go, arms laden with their bounty as he chased them back down their beanstalk, but he _knew_ it was going to be a pain.

He'd deal with it, though, because he wasn't sending Bucky back down his beanstalk to die.

They walked back towards the castle, Bucky's head even with Steve's knee, and he kept shooting Steve doubtful, distrustful looks.

Steve pretended not to notice, just like he pretended not to notice that Bucky was a bit more than skittish: under his appearance of calm he was flat-out scared.

Bucky was a strange name, but it suited the man who'd whirled to face him, Sam-the-goose wriggling under his arm, and grinned through his fear. Steve had felt the inevitable trickles of guilt, but he couldn't let him go. Not when he'd had Sam. Any other goose, Steve would have found a way, just like he always did—tripping was always good, or feigning injury when the bravest slung a stone or shot an arrow—but he couldn't give up Sam.

Now that he knew what was waiting for Bucky, he was damn glad it had been Sam he'd grabbed. Steve knew Pierce and he'd bet this entire cloud kingdom Bucky's reward even if he had been successful would have been a knife in the gut.

"This is the castle," Steve said, shaking off old memories as they approached the front door. It was as big as he was, the magic that ruled the clouds as adaptable and changeable as clouds themselves. Whatever Steve's size, the castle was always sized to match.

Of course, that made it far too large for Bucky.

Never mind; they'd work it out.

"Do I—" Bucky stopped. "What do you wan—" Another pause. Steve waited patiently. "I mean, where do I go?"

"In here, unless you have a better idea. I don't think you want to stay out with the geese." Steve gave him a sly smile. "Sam's the kind of goose to hold a grudge."

"The goose's name is Sam?"

"Yeah, I named her after a friend of mine." He grinned up at the sky as he remembered Sam-the-person's disgruntled expression. "It only took him a few weeks to start speaking to me again."

Steve suspected Bucky's startled response was because it hadn't occurred to him that Steve had friends.

"Come on, let's get you set up with somewhere to sleep."

Steve was always amazed by the magic, by its thoroughness, although this was the first time he'd wished it was a little _less_ thorough—or that it came with a way to turn it off. The castle was a castle, whether it was giant or not, with everything that implied, including far too many rooms. He chose one down the hall from his, grabbed a boot to prop the door open, and pulled the drawer from the large chest in the corner, setting it up next to the bed. It was easy to cut pieces off the blanket to make something close enough to the right size for Bucky. 

Clothes, he realised, were going to be a problem. Everything he owned was currently giant-sized and Bucky didn't have anything but what he was walking around in. He'd have to send one of the geese to let Sam know about Bucky, anyway; he could ask them to bring clothes with them on their next visit.

"Will this work?" he asked.

Bucky nodded. He looked a bit dazed, like he wasn't quite sure this was happening. "Thanks." He prodded the wood. "I've never slept in a drawer before. I mean, maybe when I was a baby, but not that I remember."

"I'd be surprised if you had. Hungry?"

Judging by the look on his face, the answer was yes. Steve led the way down to the kitchen and faced the next problem.

"Is everything all right?"

"Yes. No. Hang on." He hurried off and came back with a thimble. It was still huge, but it was at least something Bucky could drink out of. "Just realised I've got nothing to feed you on."

"You're not really set up for someone my size, huh?"

"Not at the moment, anyway," Steve muttered, but a mutter at his current size was loud and Bucky gave him a puzzled-veering-into-suspicious look. "Don't worry about it."

He set out food, slicing the castle's bread and sausage and cheese into regular pieces for himself, and dicing them into tiny pieces for Bucky, pouring fresh goat's milk into a mug and the thimble, setting it all out on the table. Then he paused, looking down at Bucky, who smiled back uncertainly.

"Any ground bones in that bread?"

Steve had to laugh. "No, it's just the regular kind." He scratched the back of his neck. "Can I lift you up to the table?"

Bucky's smile faded, and he went very still. Steve thought he could see him swallow. Then he squared his shoulders and said, "Sure."

He didn't know whether it was bravery or bravado, but either way it impressed him. He flattened his hand on the floor, palm up, fingers curled slightly, and left it to Bucky.

With a little breath, Bucky stepped onto his hand, steadying himself with a light touch on his fingers, and Steve carefully lifted him up to the table.

Bucky hopped off, gave Steve a quick nod of thanks, and settled down cross-legged to eat.

He had to use both hands to manage the thimble.

*    *    *

The drawer was surprisingly comfortable. Not even for a drawer. It was just comfortable, full stop. Steve—which was not a name for a giant, Bucky decided; giants should be called Bloodcrusher or Spinebreaker, not _Steve_ , and they should be ugly and lumpy and snaggle-toothed—had piled it high with pieces of blanket, and it was soft and warm and what Bucky imagined being buried in a nest must be like.

It wasn't right. He'd known how this day would end. Probably with him dead, squashed flat or torn apart by the giant. If not, if by some miracle he escaped when the stories told him how slim a chance he had of even surviving, then it should have ended with him handing Lord Pierce a successfully stolen goose that laid golden eggs. Which would've probably changed nothing, because Lord Pierce was a snake in noble's guise and there'd be _just one more thing, Jame_ s, _and then your debt will be clear_.

None of the day's possibilities had included the giant refusing to let him leave—not because he wanted to punish Bucky for trespassing on his territory, or for stealing his goose, but because he didn't want Bucky to die. None of those possibilities had included the giant being named _Steve_. None of those possibilities had included Steve feeding him and making him a bed and picking him up on his hand.

That had been scary. Scary because Steve could simply have closed his hand and crushed him. Scary because Bucky hadn't thought for one moment that Steve would do it. And he couldn't afford to think that way.

 _I'll grind your bones to make my bread._ That was the giant from the stories.

Bucky didn't know where Lord Pierce had gotten them, but Bucky wasn't the first person to plant a handful of magic beans and climb a beanstalk into the clouds to face the giant. The stories circulated through the Six Kingdoms. There were knights and barons and even _lords_ whose families could trace their fortunes back to one brave idiot and a beanstalk. But those were the ones who came back. Those were the ones who lived. Those were the stories with happy endings. There were stories that ended the other way.

How many bones were buried in the fluffy clouds? How many skeletons were scattered at the base of old beanstalks that no one ever found?

He shivered, his body remembering the feel of the giant pounding up behind him, knowing he couldn't escape.

*    *    *

The sun had been up for an hour, Steve had been up a little longer than that—long enough to carefully feed Rose and the geese from ordinary-sized feedbags and send a goose with a message for Sam—and now he was sitting on the long stone wall that ran along behind the castle. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it beat sitting on the ground.

Behind him, he could hear Rose complaining, an irritated, loud-voiced bleat for attention. She wanted to be milked. He was going to have to ask Bucky to do it, since the magic didn't touch the plants or the animals or anything that belonged to them. He could probably manage, maybe, but it wouldn't be pretty, and he didn't think Rose would ever forgive him.

He'd thought about waking Bucky up, and quickly abandoned it as a bad idea.

Pierce had sent Bucky up here because he thought Bucky owed him. With that hanging over him, he couldn’t imagine Bucky had been sleeping much or well. He couldn't imagine Bucky had slept much or well last night, either. He'd rather let him get what rest he could. Rose was only a little bit late; she'd survive.

Steve was more concerned for Bucky. If he was going to be stuck a giant until it was safe for Bucky to leave—which he was, there was no getting around it—he was going to have to be careful. Not to hurt Bucky. Not to scare him.

Although, given the way Bucky'd faced him down yesterday, the way he'd climbed on his hand last night, Steve figured Bucky was pretty damn brave.

Careful was still going to be the watchword, here.

Not that he'd ever been careless with his strength or his size. Even before he'd had the dubious pleasure of sometimes being a literal giant, he'd been called a giant often enough. It'd been quite a change from when he was young, when he'd been scrawny and sickly and two steps short of death half the time, but that had been before his mother had found him a fairy wish.

At the time, he'd thought his mother had been lucky to find an honest fairy, one who'd had no interest in tricks or traps and had been willing to offer fair for fair.

Nowadays, Steve wondered if they'd _really_ been lucky. Or if maybe there was _exactly_ as much truth in the stories about wishes gone wrong as there were in the stories about all the Jacks who climbed the beanstalk and fell to the giant. There was no way to ask, though. When his mother died, the fairy had returned to fairyland, the human world grown too sad for her.

Whatever the truth, Steve's mother had bargained for Steve's health and traded the only thing she had: herself. The fairy had long been on the lookout for someone she could trust to care for her home and arrange her affairs, someone who would _honour_ a bargain with a fairy, not treat it as worth no more than a handful of autumn leaves. Steve's mother had turned out to be the woman she'd been looking for. They were both happy with the bargain they'd struck, and as time passed they found happiness with each other. Steve, healthy and happy and for the first time well-fed from a fairy larder, shot up and out and soon dwarfed them both.

Steve was common born, and he'd never done any great deeds of courage a noble would recognise, but before the fairy had left the human realm he'd found himself squired to a knight sworn to Pierce, lord of the neighbouring lands. Only fairy magic could have accomplished something so improbable.

He sighed at the memory and rubbed a hand through his hair. She'd meant well. She'd had no way of knowing what it would come to. She'd only ever wanted to do right by him, the son of the human woman she'd come to love.

"Steve?" A careful voice interrupted his thoughts.

He turned, wishing once more that he could turn the magic _off_ when Bucky ducked back as Steve's shadow fell over him.

"Bucky. Good morning." He kept his voice low, smiled as he stood up from the wall and crouched down. "Did you find your breakfast?"

"Hard to miss when it was sitting outside the door. Thanks for that." Bucky's smile was tentative, but Steve grinned back at him. "Uh, what is this place?"

"Technically, it's the cloud kingdom, but that always seemed like an over the top name for somewhere that's mostly bean fields, a lake, geese, and a goat."

He stood and waved a hand, gesturing for Bucky to look for himself.

Bucky, with a quick glance up at him, stepped forward, resting his hands on the wall as he gazed out over the cloudy fields and sucked in a breath of surprise.

It was something to see. The clouds stretched out forever—or as good as close enough, since Steve had never found the edge and neither had Sam (the person, not the goose), who could cover a hell of a lot more ground. A broad, neat path marked by flatter clouds ran down from the gate in the wall and continued until it disappeared in the distance. To the left of the path, neat rows of bean plants grew and to the right was a large, fenced field, emerald grass growing from the fluffy clouds. Behind the beans, a wide lake was visible, glittering with the reflection of the morning sun.  

A cool breeze swirled through the air, fluttering the bean leaves and ruffling Bucky's hair. He leaned on the stone wall, mouth slightly agape as he took it all in.

"It's clouds."

"It is."

"But there's things growing on it. From it. From them." He waved his hands around. "From the _clouds_."  

"Yeah," Steve said, a little proudly.  

Bucky just shook his head.

They stood in silence as Bucky contemplated the seeming impossibility and Steve watched Bucky, who seemed to have forgotten Steve was something to be wary of, until an angry, ear-piercing bleat shattered the air.

Bucky jumped. "What the hells?"

Steve winced. "That would be Rose. And I need to ask you to do something for me."

He was instantly wary. "What?"

"How do you feel about milking a goat?"

Bucky stared up at him. "Confused."

"It's a place to start."

*    *    *

Bucky sat on a stool with his forehead pressed against the warm, brown flank of a goat, hands wrapped around her teats as he rolled his fingers and watched the milk squirt down into the pail. It was oddly soothing even if his hands were getting sore. The goat was chewing on something, her long, freckled ears ticking back and forth as her jaws worked.

Steve was crouching outside the shed, peering in, giving Bucky sudden unwanted insight into how small creatures hiding in their burrows from a fox must feel, but there was nothing predatory about him. On the contrary, he kind of reminded Bucky of an oversized chicken. A broody one, since he was crooning to the goat, "You’re a good girl, Rose. That's my good girl."

The goat— _Rose_ , he mentally corrected—didn't seem too interested in Steve, Steve's words, or Bucky. Bucky had the feeling that if she could manage the milking on her own, she would, that Bucky was just a necessary evil on the way to getting her udder emptied.

The soreness in his hands was starting to turn into a dull ache as the milk in the pail neared the top, but he kept it up. "How do you usually manage this?" he asked.

"It's usually not a problem," Steve replied after a bit.

Bucky gave him a sharp look over Rose's rump. Steve wasn't looking at him, he was looking into the distance, and Bucky didn't think he was lying, but… But what did Bucky know? For all he knew, Steve did this all the time. Maybe this was what he did for fun. Maybe yesterday some other moron who'd climbed a beanstalk had been invited by Steve to stay in the castle because it 'wasn't safe to climb down' and they'd milked the goat and now their bones were buried in the fluffy clouds that stretched out forever.

Or hell, the beanstalk had poked through the clouds. Maybe Steve could just tear a big enough hole and drop the body through and it would tumble back down to the ground.

He shivered.

"Bucky?"

It was soft, gentle, wrapping around him and Steve was watching him, those too-big eyes filled with concern. He searched them, trying to find something sharp, some warning to be wary. It wasn't like he didn't have a map of what to look for; he'd seen enough of Lord Pierce's eyes.

There was nothing.

He let out a long sigh. "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for. You can stop if you want, Rose'll be fine, now."

Rose peered around to give Bucky a judging glare over her big, bumpy nose. "No, I'll finish."

It didn't take long, and his hand was cramping by the time he was done, but he had a pail full of warm, frothy goat's milk.

He patted Rose in thanks for being so cooperative. In return she gave him a look of deep offence and walked out of the shed, bouncing a little on the clouds as she returned to her emerald grass and began grazing.

Steve watched her fondly. "Thanks, Bucky."

"No problem." He grimaced, rubbing his hands.

"How are your hands?"

"Sore."

"Sorry about that. It takes a few days to get used to it."

Bucky stopped and considered Steve. "How do you know?"

Steve shrugged carelessly, and Bucky once more had that sense of evasion. "Everyone knows that," he said. "Give me the bucket and you can explore, if you want. It's safe," he added. "There's nothing here that will hurt you."

Bucky handed him the bucket, which Steve grasped delicately between thumb and forefinger, and thought, _Isn't there?_ The worst part was that he wanted to believe him.

"Go on," Steve said gently, like he'd read Bucky's mind. "Come back up to the castle when you're ready. You can swim if you want, just don't go past the line where the beans stop growing. Once you get past them, you'll be in goose territory." He made a thoughtful noise. "They won't hurt you, but you might not like dealing with them. And you definitely want to avoid Sam."

Remembering the hissing, biting, swatting monster (which he had been trying to steal, so maybe that'd been fair), he agreed. "You're going to stay up at the castle?"

"I'm going to stay up at the castle."

With that, Steve turned and strode off. Bucky watched him go. He was surprisingly graceful for something, _someone_ , so huge. He would have expected a giant to be clumsy— _and be named Bloodcrusher and be lumpy and have bad teeth­_ —but Steve moved like a knight's charger. Huge, powerful, but all of it under control and oddly graceful.

He shook it off. The thought of the lake was calling him. The thought of being clean was calling him.

The bean plants were taller than his head, growing in long, straight rows, the stalks rising out of the cloud-ground the same way the beanstalk he'd climbed had risen up out of the actual ground—hell, had it only been the night before last?

Last night he'd slept in a drawer. The night before he hadn't slept at all, kneeling on the ground while Lord Pierce's men stood over him, keeping vigil as a tiny curl of green unfurled into an impossible _tower_ of green.

There were gaps between the bean plants, space left for them to grow, he guessed, and he carefully pushed between two plants. The leaves were soft, brushing against his skin, thin tendrils of vine curling. He stopped in the space between the rows and looked down. A vine was wrapped around his arm. He gently pulled it loose and it curled around his fingers.

"Uh."

It paused. Bucky had no idea what to do and when he didn't say anything else, it twined itself around his hand, like an elongated, overly affectionate kitten.

Bucky finally poked it. Gently. "I need to keep going," he told it. "Sorry." When, after a moment, it pulled itself free, he stared at it. Then he patted the plant he thought it had come from. "Thanks."

A rustling travelled through the plants, their leaves shaking, and there was suddenly a clear path to the lake as they bowed to the side.

A shiver travelled down Bucky's spine. "Thanks," he said again, and cautiously walked through the path the plants had made.

The lake was beautiful, like the story-book idea of a lake brought to life. He stripped down to nothing and eased into the water. It was the perfect temperature, crisp but warm, and the lake bed was smooth and sandy. He grabbed a handful of sand, his fingers hitting fluffy clouds beneath it, and scrubbed himself clean, ducked under the water and scrubbed his hair, and then ducked under and stayed there for as long as he could hold his breath. It was calm, and quiet, and he felt his heartbeat slow, his mind go still. He wanted to stay, but he couldn't. He had to breathe.

He broke the surface and found himself staring at a goose. She was standing on the shore, staring back at him.

 _Glaring_ back at him.

He knew it was a her. He recognised her. She was hard to mistake for any other goose, what with the gold lining the edge of each feather and the devil in her eyes.

Sam was standing on the shore between him and his clothes.

There was no way he was getting out of the water naked. The potential for permanent harm in very sensitive places was way too high.

Like she'd read his mind, she flapped her wings and hissed at him.

"Look," he said. "It wasn't my fault."

Who knew geese could turn their devil-glares sarcastic?

"Okay, it was my fault, but it was take you or get killed and, I'm sorry, I'm sure you're a very nice goose and all, but are you seriously telling me you wouldn't have made the same choice?"

Sam waddled over to Bucky's pile of clothes and settled down onto them.

"Come on, those are all I have!"

She smirked at him. It wasn't possible, beaks weren't made for it, but that was definitely a smirk.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I don't want to fight with you or whatever it is you're planning on doing," and he did wonder why she didn't come after him in the lake, since geese were water birds, "how about we declare a truce?"

She started to preen. Bucky groaned. She ignored him.

"Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm going to swim. You do…that. Have fun." He dived back down under the water, turning his back on Sam, which was possibly very stupid, but she seemed satisfied with sitting, hells, and probably _shitting_ , on his clothes, so he doubted she was going to haul herself off them to come after him.

About half an hour later a raucous honking dragged his attention back to her. She was standing up, her gold-edged curly tail wiggling. When she saw she had his attention she flapped her wings and ran straight for him, right across the water, barely clearing him as he ducked down, and soared into the air.

He watched her fly away, then slogged out of the lake, water streaming off him, to survey the damage.

There was no damage. There was no shit. Nestled in his pile of clothes was a gleaming golden egg.

Bucky stared at it. Then he sat his bare ass down on the fluffy shore and kept staring at it. It was, of course, the size of a goose egg and it was, maybe, solid gold. Hesitantly, he reached out and touched it. It was warm and soft, denting slightly under his fingers.

He hefted it. It was heavy with more than just its weight. This much gold, what it meant, it was _heavy._ He set it down and rubbed his fingers against his bare thigh, like he could wipe away the feel of it.

He dried himself with his tunic, then pulled on the rest of his clothes, wrapped the egg in his damp tunic, and headed back to the castle.

*    *    *

Steve had propped the back door of the castle open with another boot, because he doubted he'd hear Bucky knocking, and he was sitting at the kitchen table working on some correspondence—it would shrink back down to normal size once Bucky was gone—when Bucky walked into the kitchen.

He was damp, his clothes clinging to him, his hair darker and curling around his ears and around his neck. He was carrying his tunic, his shirt was half unlaced at the throat, showing off a fair amount of chest, and Steve had an entirely inappropriate moment of pure appreciation for how _good_ he looked.

He pushed it away. Bucky looked strange. Angry and scared and confused and he dropped his tunic on the ground with a muted clunk and a pointed, "What is this?"

Steve stared down at him. "Your tunic?" he finally ventured.

Bucky pushed his hand through his hair, shedding droplets of water, and glared. It made Steve want to laugh with happiness, because right in that moment Bucky wasn't scared at all. While Bucky fiddled with his tunic, Steve pushed the chair back and knelt on the ground next to him.

When he saw the gleam of gold, he went still. "Where did you get that?"   

"Your stupid goose. Sam. I was trying to swim in peace and she showed up and laid it."

Steve relaxed.

Bucky didn't. "Did you send her? Did you send her to drop this thing in my clothes?"

"What?" Steve needed to be smaller, needed to be Bucky's size, but nothing he did was going to work. Whatever he did, he was a giant to Bucky. "What are you talking about?"

"That much gold. That could buy a title. What, was it supposed to be a test? See if I'd steal it?"

"Bucky…" Steve sat down, which at least put his head closer to Bucky's. "No. I can't tell Sam what to do. She's an animal. She's a very smart animal, she's a very old animal, but she's still an animal. She understands people want her eggs, but she doesn't understand about gold. She's smart enough to figure out 'if I give him one of these maybe he'll go away', but that's all. I can't tell her what to do, not like you're talking about."

Bucky gave him a searing look, eyes dark.

"Truth, Bucky. Sam just doesn’t like you. You shoved her in a bag. What did you expect?"

"Not for her to lay a damn golden egg on my clothes." He let out a shuddering breath and his shoulders slumped. "I wasn't even sure if I believed there really was a goose who laid golden eggs." He sighed, long and deep, and leaned against the table leg.

"You can have it if you want it. The egg," he added when Bucky gave him a questioning look.

Bucky held up his hands. "No. It's too much. I don't want it."

"Okay, but when you leave I'm not sending you off empty handed."

"Can we argue about that when we get there?"

"Sure," Steve said, smiling down at him.

Bucky slid down the table leg until he was sitting on the floor, his knees up, and stared at the underside of the table. Steve stood, slowly, not wanting to startle him, and filled the thimble from the barrel of drinking water, setting it in front of him before settling back on the floor.

They sat, Bucky taking long drinks from the thimble, as the silence settled around them.

"Did you know your bean plants are alive?" Bucky said.

"I should hope so. Wouldn’t be much point watering them if they weren't."

It startled a laugh out of Bucky. "That's not what I meant."

"It's what you said."

"What I meant was they're alive alive. I think. Are they?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"One of them grabbed me." He held up his hand. "Not grabbed me. That's wrong. It wrapped a vine around my hand."

Steve considered how to answer. He finally settled on, "They're not ordinary plants. They sometimes have opinions about people, but they won't hurt you."

"Huh."

Steve was never going to get a better opening. "There's something I wanted to ask you, but you don't have to answer."

It got him a suspicious look, but Bucky said, "You can ask."

"Your beanstalk. Where did the beans come from?"

"I don't know. Lord Pierce had them."

It was a stab in the gut. A handful of beans would _never_ find their way to someone like Pierce. A handful of beans should never find their way to someone who would sell them to someone like Pierce. Most likely, it had been death or threats for Pierce to get them, and Pierce had never been one for bluffing.

"But you planted them?" he asked. Even if Pierce had gotten his hands on them they'd never grow for him, but he needed to be sure.

"Yeah, Steve. Lord Pierce gave them to me and I planted them and watched the beanstalk grow. Then I climbed up it," he lifted his eyes to Steve's face, "and found you."


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a week of living in the giant's castle. A week of milking Rose in the morning and evening. A week of swimming in the lake and washing his clothes and letting them dry overnight and wearing them the next day.

He was still alive. Steve hadn't hurt him. Steve hadn't ever once deliberately scared him. Accidentally, yeah, but he couldn't blame Steve for that. That was on him, and the fact that Steve was a giant. His hands were as big as Bucky's body, Bucky's head came up to his knee. Even when Steve crouched and knelt and sat, he was still too big. It would still be too easy for Steve to hurt him and there wouldn't be a damn thing Bucky could do about it.

But as he milked Rose and watered the beans—gently plucking loose the vines that curled around his arm like they were saying thanks—and watched Steve move gracefully and carefully, he couldn't shake the ever-growing certainty that Steve wouldn't. Not deliberately and not accidentally.

Bucky knew _something_ wasn't right. How had Rose gotten milked before Bucky arrived? Why did Steve keep a goat who barely made him a mouthful's worth of milk? What was going on with the bean plants?

Steve had been downright evasive when Bucky had asked his few questions.

Life had taught Bucky that when things weren't right it usually meant he was going to get screwed, but he didn't think it was going to be by his bones lying buried in the fluffy clouds.

*    *    *

Sam's visits rarely surprised Steve. They couldn’t, not when the geese turned into squawking, honking, flapping bundles of excitement. Not Sam-the-goose, who had far too much dignity and tended to stay away from Sam-the-person, but the rest of the flock _loved_ Sam and always sensed when he was on his way.

When Steve fed them this morning they were almost too excited to eat, which had meant some preparation.

The first thing was asking Bucky to stay in the castle. It had gotten him a very long look, not quite suspicious, but he'd agreed.

The second thing was filling a canvas pack with tiny, oddly shaped canvas packs, bean seeds, and golden eggs. Third thing, Steve had started walking. It _was_ possible to get far enough away from the castle to be out of range of the magic, but it meant a very long walk. If he hadn't currently been a giant he wouldn't even have tried, only his long legs and long stride giving him a chance of doing it in any sort of reasonable time.

Of course, if he hadn't been a giant he wouldn't have needed to.

The entire flock of currently tiny geese trailed behind him like ducklings. Until they got annoyed with waddling, and took to the air, flying ahead of him and then circling back, then flying ahead once more.

Steve kept walking, and _kept_ walking, until the pack he was carrying split open, spilling its contents onto the clouds. He'd passed the edge of the magic. He and his pack had returned to their usual sizes. Since the _contents_ of his pack had never changed size, what with belonging to the plants and the animals, once his pack had shrunk the inevitable had happened.

The geese landed, once more their normal size in comparison, and stared. "I knew that was going to happen," he told them. "I just didn't know exactly _when._ "

They gave him a series of judgey looks, because that was what geese _did_ , then whipped around, practically standing at avian attention.

Between one moment and the next, Sam burst through the clouds, wisps of cloud-fluff trailing from his gigantic wings.

If Steve had been a goose, he too would probably have been impressed by a giant swan. Hell, he was impressed anyway. Sam backwinged, Nat, who was perched on his back, curled her head down and tucked her feet, and he landed as neat as could be.

The geese started honking wildly and Sam stretched out his wings and bowed.

"If you're finished showing off?" Nat asked. Sam craned his head around and eyed her and she sighed. "Fine. Enjoy your adoring audience but let me off." 

He tilted one wing out of the way and she hopped off his back.

Sam was immediately surrounded by a gaggle of geese. Steve was immediately confronted by Nat.

"Explain," she said, slipping the bulging pack off her back while she tapped one foot very lightly. From her that tapping was the equivalent of grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him.

He avoided her eyes. "Explain?"

"I got your message." A now-human Sam, disappointed geese trailing behind him, stepped up to stand next to Nat. "And we'd like you to explain why you apparently have a Jack living with you. Because I know that can't be right." Sam fixed him with a firm look. "I mean, unless you've had a very frank talk with him that he actually _believed_ , you've been a giant the whole time he's been here."

"He's not a Jack."

Sam and Nat glanced at each other.

"Isn't he?" Nat asked.

"No, he," Steve sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "look can we at least say hi before we get into this? This is the first time I haven't had to worry about crushing someone in a week."

"Shit, Steve." Suddenly he was wrapped up tight as Sam dragged him in for a hug. "Of course." He hugged Sam back, holding on tight, and sighed again, this time in relief. Sam's feathery smell was always a comfort and Nat gently patted his shoulder.

"Thanks," he said into Sam's shoulder then leaned back.  

Sam didn't let him go, held him at arm's length, looking him over frankly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Really, I am," he said to Nat's doubtful noise. "It's just been…strange. And it's not like Bucky's all that comfortable with it, either."

"His name's _really_ Bucky?" Sam said, clearly amused, and Steve gave him a quick smile.

"I'm not happy you have a Jack living with you," Nat said.

"He's not a Jack, Nat."

"Did he plant the seeds and climb the beanstalk?"

"Yes and no."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

Anger crawled up his spine, into his voice. Not at Bucky, never at Bucky, it wasn't Bucky's fault. "They weren't his beans."

"Where did he get them?"

He took a deep breath, knowing they'd both understand the implications. "Pierce."

"That fucker," Sam growled and Nat's eyes went hard. "How did he get his hands on a handful of beans?"

"I don't know. Bucky doesn't know. Can you send out feelers, see if you can figure out if someone's missing?"

"Yes," Nat said, and her eyes were cold. If something had gone wrong enough that a handful of beans had been offered to someone who would sell them to Pierce, Nat would deal with it, but Steve didn't think it was likely. He was certain she'd be looking for someone dead.

"Pierce has got something over Bucky, enough to send him up a beanstalk to face the giant and try and steal Sam. He was sent after her, specifically, the goose that lays the golden eggs."

"I still can't believe you named that goose after me," Sam muttered.

It gave Steve a moment to breathe. To smile. To say, "What's good for the gander is good for the goose…"

"I'm not a _gander_ , I'm a swan, thank you. Swan prince, as you very well know." 

"Oh, I know," Steve assured him earnestly, but his mirth faded. "I couldn't let her go, but if Bucky went back without her…" Steve lifted a hand. "It's _Pierce_. I couldn't let Bucky go, either."

"No, you couldn't," Sam agreed.

"How's it working?" Natasha asked.

"We're managing. He's milking Rose. All the castle's food got bigger with the castle, so that's not a problem. Pierce's men were waiting at the bottom of the beanstalk, so when he doesn’t come down they'll think the giant killed him. He should be able to leave soon. If he's careful, he should be safe."

"That's a long time to be stuck as a giant."

"Better than Pierce getting his hands on him."

There was nothing either of them could say to something so patently true.

"Can you start looking for somewhere for him to go?" Steve asked. "Somewhere out of Pierce's lands. Bucky needs somewhere safe. Somewhere he can make his own way," he added, remembering the golden egg, his refusal to take it. "But safe's most important."

"I can think of one or two places," Sam said, and Nat nodded.

"There's a few. They might not be what he's used to…"

"That's got to be good, Nat. I think what's he been used to up to now has been pretty bad."

"You'd know better than anyone," she said, touching his arm gently and he grimaced.

"Okay," Sam called after a bit, clearly not talking to them. "Who's coming on this trip!"

The geese clustered around him, scuffling and shoving, but eventually half a dozen presented themselves.

"Excellent, thank you," Sam told them, and they preened.

Natasha unloaded her pack, which had clothes for Bucky in it. Steve touched them, then grinned at her. She glared at him and he didn't say a word.

The oddly shaped packs Steve had carried were oddly shaped because they were designed to fit on a goose. Steve, Sam, and Nat carefully fitted them onto their volunteers and gave them each a golden egg. The bean seeds and two more eggs went into Natasha's pack.

Sam called for one last volunteer to carry Bucky's clothes back to the castle and she waddled up to get her pack. Steve wasn't sure it would work, but since the magic didn't affect anything that belonged to the animals, and it hadn't affected anything of Bucky's, if the clothes went from the goose's pack to Bucky's hands, they should stay the same.

When they were ready to go, Nat stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "Take care of _yourself_ , Steve. Not your Jack, but you."

"I will, Nat. Same goes for you."

"I always do."

Sam fixed him with a sharp look. "I know you, and I know how you think, so just be careful, all right?"

"I always—"

"If you say you're always careful, I swear I will whack you with my wing so hard you _will_ be seeing stars."

Steve laughed, and Sam gave him a quick hug. "Bye, Sam."

"We'll be back soon with somewhere for your Jack to go."

"He's not—"

A puff of feathers interrupted him and where Sam had been was a huge swan. Natasha climbed onto his back, settling into his feathers, and he ran into the sky, wings beating the air, the geese following as they spiralled high and then down, breaking through the clouds and disappearing from sight.

"—a Jack," he finished, shaking his head and smiling as he started the trek back towards the castle, the geese flying in a V overhead.

*    *    *

Bucky wasn't sure what to make of the goose staring at him impatiently. It wasn't Sam, he knew that much. It was one of the other geese who flocked around the far edge of the lake.

But it was wearing a backpack.

It was a goose wearing a backpack.

He'd stayed in the castle, just like Steve had asked him to, even if he'd didn't know why Steve had asked him to and Steve hadn't offered an explanation.

He wasn't sure exactly how long Steve had been gone for. He wasn't sure when Steve was coming back.

He wasn't sure what to do about this goose who was now glaring at him impatiently.

Or the fact that it was wearing a _backpack_.

It turned its head and stabbed its beak into the backpack and then hissed at Bucky and flapped its wings.

Okay, that he could figure out. "You want me to take that off you?"

He cautiously approached, fingers curled tight, because he didn't want to lose one, and tentatively reached for the buckles. With a look of _finely_ , the goose turned to give him better access and stood, almost patiently, while Bucky unbuckled the pack and lifted it off.

With a loud honk, it turned and waddled away, leaving a large white deposit on the floor. Obviously its opinion of Bucky's service.

"No one told me there'd be geese with _backpacks_ ," he yelled after it.

He found a bit of cloth and wiped the floor, then stood there, staring at the pack.

He was still staring at it when Steve came back. And grinned down at him. "Hey, you got it."

"A goose showed up and wanted me to undo its backpack." He held it up. "This one."

"It's for you."

"The goose brought me a present?" he asked, bewildered.

Steve started laughing, loud enough to rattle the cups on the table. Bucky slowly went from bewildered to annoyed.

"No. No, sorry. The goose was _carrying_ it and it's not a present. Not really. It's just clothes."

Bucky scrambled to open the pack. His clothes were clean, sort of, what he'd been able to manage every night, but the idea of having a change of clothes, of being able to actually wash his clothes properly and let them dry was practically a dream at this point.

Sure enough, there were clothes in the pack. Two pairs of pants, two shirts, a tunic, socks, underthings, all rolled up tight. He clutched it to his chest and fought with the emotions swirling around inside him.

He couldn't remember the last time someone had given him something. Yes, Steve had given him food, and a place to sleep, but this was different; this was actual _things_. More than he needed. Two pairs of everything.

Hells. He bowed his head, let his hair swing forward to cover his face while he got himself under control.

"Bucky?" He could hear Steve moving closer, knew if he turned his head he'd be able to see his knee, and he shivered, things he didn't have words for sliding under his skin. "If they're not good… Actually," Steve said ruefully, "there's not much I can do about it, not soon, anyway."

"No." He took a quiet breath and lifted his head. "No, this is great. Thanks."

He'd been right. Steve was right next to him, crouched down, one giant hand resting on the floor as he watched Bucky, faint concern lining his face.

"I'm going to get changed and wash these." He waved at himself and then gestured at the door. "If that's okay?"

"Of course, Bucky. Whatever you want."

*    *    *

The next day, Bucky was wearing his new clothes, which were soft against his skin, made of finer material than he was used to. He'd milked Rose and fed the geese, matched Sam glare for glare, never taking his eyes off her while he gave her the pile of table scraps, and now he was watering the rows of bean plants, gently disentangling the vines as they curled around his hands.

The fluffy cloud-ground started shaking.

His head jerked up and he ran up the path and through the gate and around the front of the castle. In the distance, he could see Steve pounding across the white expanse, chasing a fleeing figure.

A metallic sizzle burned the back of his throat.

Steve almost had them, arm swiping the air, fingers stretching to grab, when he tripped and fell, slamming into the ground.

They ran faster, pulling away, but Steve leapt to his feet, pelting after them, and Bucky was running, every story of the giant in the clouds flowing bloody through his mind, memory of his fear as Steve had chased him down overwhelming everything else as Steve's deep, booming voice belted out, "I'll grind your bones to make my bread!"

The fleeing figure put on a burst of speed and so did Bucky. He needed to be closer and suddenly he was, throwing himself in front of Steve.

"STOP!"

Steve scrambled to obey, heels digging into the clouds as he fought not to run him down, aggressive scowl giving way to surprise. The boy—young man? Bucky was lousy with ages—he'd been chasing paused, but Bucky yelled at him to, "RUN," and he did, bolting away, the stuffed sack he was clutching hanging heavy on his back.

"I won't let you hurt him," Bucky snarled, fists raised. "I won't let you. I won't." Steve was a giant, Bucky knew he couldn't stop him, but he was going to try.

Steve didn't speak. Didn't try and get past Bucky, just stared over his head, only his eyes moving, tracking, then he said, "He's gone down his beanstalk."

Bucky almost collapsed with relief as everything that had grabbed him finally let go, leaving him shaky and unsure.

Steve was standing, still as a mountain, gazing into the distance.

Uneasiness stirred, and he swallowed. "Steve?"

"We should get back to the castle," he said tonelessly

"I couldn't let you…"

Steve's eyes dropped to meet his. There was something lurking there, something that looked like hurt in the brief second before it disappeared. "Of course not."

Steve turned to go. Bucky darted forward, catching his pant leg while his survival instincts _screamed_ at him: Steve was _dangerous_ , he'd just _seen_ it. "Wait."

His touch should barely have been noticeable, but Steve stopped and carefully turned back. Waiting patiently.

He'd just seen it. What had he seen. _What had he seen?_ It didn't add up, it didn't match the Steve he'd learned. The Steve he'd learned was careful and cautious and went out of his way not to hurt him, not to scare him. He'd been afraid because of story and memory and instinct and things he'd learned from people who _were not Steve_.  

He stepped back so he could look up into Steve's face. It was expressionless. But not cold. Not ice. "Could you have caught him?"

"Yes."

"If I hadn't interfered, would he have made it down the beanstalk?"

"Yes."

"You tripped on purpose." Steve nodded. "You weren't going to hurt him." It was practically a whisper.

"No, Bucky. I wasn't going to hurt him."

Bucky believed him. He _believed him_. "I need you to explain. Please, Steve. Explain it to me, because I don't understand. I believe you, but I don't understand. I don't understand what's going on up here."

Steve spent a long time looking down at him, solemn-faced and serious. Bucky bit his lip. Then Steve shifted, sighed. "How desperate do you have to be to climb the beanstalk? How desperate do you have to be to risk the giant?" Steve held out his hands, palms up, casting Bucky in shadow. Bucky couldn't help remembering Steve lifting him up to the table for every meal, being so careful with those giant hands. "Anyone that desperate deserves whatever they can carry away."

"You let them go."

"I let them go."

"There's no one who doesn't make it."

"Bucky." Steve's smile was a little sad. "Where do you think the beans come from in the first place?"

Guilt was a live snake, twisting in his heart. There were no bones in the fluffy clouds, no skeletons scattered at the beanstalk's base. Maybe Steve scared the ones who climbed up here, and Bucky was willing to bet there was a reason for that, but he didn't _hurt_ them. He closed his eyes and took two steps forward, pressing his forehead against Steve's knee. "Steve. I'm sorry."

"You didn't know."

"I should have known. You took me in, you wanted to protect me from Lord Pierce. And I know," he laughed a little desperately, "I _know_ what someone who likes hurting people looks like. That's not you."

"It's really not." Steve's voice was a bit shaky as he hesitantly curled giant fingers around Bucky's back and it wasn't scary at all.

Eventually, Bucky stirred, Steve's hand fell away, and Bucky leaned back and opened his eyes.

Only to scramble backwards, shocked, because Steve was _gone_.

"Bucky?"

"Who the hell are you? Where's Steve?" He looked around wildly, like Steve might be just out of sight, but there was no looming giant. Just this oversized, wide-shouldered blond who was staring at him with an expression of dawning understanding.

He clamped his hands around Bucky's biceps just in time to keep Bucky from bolting. "Bucky."

Bucky tried to shove him off, feet digging into the clouds as he tried to get free, but it didn't work, because oversized obviously came with stupidly overstrengthed.

"Bucky," he said, softer and tinged with humour. "It's me. Steve."

"Bullshit," he snapped.

He laughed.

Bucky's eyes narrowed, because that did _sound_ a little like Steve.

"Will you look at me?" Bucky glared. "It's magic. The castle, it's magic. It works on what people believe, so people find what they expect to find. People expect to find a terrible giant, so that's what they get. I guess your perceptions…changed." Steve's voice was tinged with wonder and he was gazing at Bucky like he'd done something amazing. "Now you're just seeing me."

Bucky eyed him suspiciously, but he did look like Steve, just shrunk. He still wasn't small, though. "You're still kind of giant."

"Fair enough," Steve said. "If I let you go are you going to panic again?"

"I didn't _panic_. I was _surprised_."

Steve raised an eyebrow, but he slowly opened his hands.

Bucky stepped back, folded his arms, and looked away. "There was nothing wrong with being surprised. It was completely understandable. I thought you were _gone_."

Steve was silent for a moment, then he reached out and patted Bucky's folded arms. "Sorry."

Thoughts were colliding so thick and fast Bucky's brain felt like a beehive, but one fought its way to the top. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would you have believed me?"

He wanted to say yes. He bowed his head while he thought, and eventually shook his head. "No. Not a chance. If anything, it would have made it worse."

"Yeah. You were already scared. If I'd started trotting out bullshit-sounding stuff like 'I'm not really a giant, you just think I am', well. Your beanstalk's long dead, so you couldn't bolt, but—"

"What? My beanstalk's what?"

"Dead. They die in a day or two, so you couldn’t have used it to leave no matter how you reacted."

A shimmer of panic at having no way out, no way to escape, kicked his heartrate up.

"Hey, it's okay." Steve was way too observant, even at this size. He held up his hands, earnest, concerned. "When you're ready to go, I'll grow you a new one. It'll carry you down. You're not trapped here. "

The panic faded, swirling away like a puff of vapour. He'd worried for nothing. "Sorry," he offered.

"Don't worry about it, Bucky. I figure that's a perfectly normal reaction."

"I'm not sure anything up here is normal."

"Nah, of course it is." Steve gestured towards the castle and they started walking.

It was easy to fall into step with Steve when he was only an inch or two taller and not looming several whole Buckys above him.

"You think this," Bucky waved down at the fluffy cloud-ground, at the castle ahead of them, and around generally, hoping he captured the entire idea of the place, where emerald grass and grabby bean plants grew from clouds, "is normal?"

"Well, sure. It's always like this, so it must be normal."

Bucky stared at him out of the corner of his eye. Doubtfully. Steve's voice had been a little _too_ earnest. After a second Steve cracked a smile. Bucky snorted and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Not buying that one, are you?"

"Not for a second."

"That was a lie anyway. It's _not_ usually like this." Bucky raised an eyebrow. "You're here."  

"Oh, _I'm_ the thing that makes this place not normal."

Steve just smiled enigmatically and pulled open the entirely ordinary-sized door, which was propped open by a now entirely ordinary-sized boot, and ushered him into the entirely ordinary-sized castle.

*    *    *

Steve had scared a lot of Jacks in his times as a giant. He didn't enjoy it, but it was _necessary_ and because it was necessary, it was something he could do—however it made him feel.   

But he'd never felt anything like the sick miasma that had swamped him when Bucky had bolted out in front of him. When he'd seen that look in Bucky's eyes. That too-familiar look. Fear and determination and the sure and certain knowledge that what he was about to do probably wouldn't make a damn bit of difference, but he was going to do it anyway. Whatever it cost.

It had hurt, a hurt he had no right to feel. What was Bucky supposed to think? But worse than hurt, that look had reached right down Steve's throat and strangled his heart.

It was maybe _still_ strangling it, even if the strangling had got a little gentler with Bucky's realisation. With Bucky's understanding. With Bucky seeing him for who he was.

He shook it off as best he could and stopped in the hallway. "You know what this means?"

Bucky gave a strangled laugh. Steve turned to look at him, concerned.

"Steve, I think I can safely say I don't know what any of this means."

"I was going to say: it means no more sleeping in a drawer," he said. "But you probably have some questions." Questions Steve didn't think he'd be able to answer. He hadn't expected this to happen. He hadn't expected Bucky to see him as _Steve_ , or the questions which were bound to follow. He was starting to understand why Sam and Nat has been concerned.

They were standing in the entrance hall of the castle, the stone walls rising high above them, tapestries on the wall, but this time Bucky was the right size for it. He was only a little shorter than Steve. He glanced around, up at the ceiling, down at the floor, before his eyes settled on Steve's face. "A few."  

Steve waited.

"I guess the thing that makes no sense is: why grow seeds that let people climb up here and steal from you? If you were eating people, I could see why. It would be a great way to lure them up here." Steve winced, and Bucky made an apologetic face, lifting one hand and lightly touching Steve's arm. "Sorry. I'm just working it through. If you got off on scaring people, on hurting people, same thing." Bucky's hand was still on his arm and he pressed down gently. "But it's not that."

"No."

"No," Bucky agreed, firmly, and the gentle grip around Steve's heart gave a little squeeze. "So why?"

For a moment, he was tempted. He was tempted to tell Bucky everything, but he held firm and it passed, if not without a pang. "I can't answer that. It's not just my story to tell."

Bucky tilted his head, studying him, then said, "Okay. Can I keep asking questions?"

"You can. As long as you don't mind I won't be able to answer some of them."

"Okay, second question. Are the mysterious they—"

"The _mysterious they_?"

"The other people whose story it is. _The mysterious they_."

"Noted."

"Are they where the food comes from? Because otherwise we'd be eating nothing but goose eggs and beans, and I don't know about you, but I don't even want to think about what the castle would smell like."

Bucky's eyes were glinting and Steve couldn't help the snicker. "No, that's more magic. The castle has a kitchen, the kitchen has a pantry, and pantries are supposed to be full of food. So it is. All the time. If there's something specific you want, you just need to expect it to be there before you open the pantry door and it'll be waiting. Cold, hot, doesn't matter. Nothing goes rancid, cold things stay cold, hot things stay hot."

"Huh," was all Bucky said, but he looked slightly dazed.

"When people climb their beanstalks they always end up raiding the pantry, I guess because it's always filled with whatever food they love best. Or food they've only ever heard about in stories."

Now Bucky was looking at him strangely.

"What?"

"You really don't care that they steal from you."

Explaining that that was entirely the point would come close to telling stories that weren't just his to tell. "I really don't. I wouldn't grow the beans if I did."

"No, I guess you wouldn't," Bucky said. "Can I ask why you scare them?"

"You can ask."

"But you won't tell me."

Steve shook his head. "It's nothing bad, Bucky. I can tell you that much."

The look Bucky gave him was searing, woke the same _depth_ of feeling he'd almost drowned in when Bucky had yelled at him to _stop_ , but it was _different._ It was opposite in every way and when Bucky said, "I believe you," it was all he could do not to reach out and touch him.

He didn't. There were limits. But, oh, he wanted to.

*    *    *

Steve had excused himself to go send a message to the _mysterious_ _they_ and left Bucky to explore the castle. He hadn't said 'apart from this or that room' or 'whatever you do don't go in there', which Bucky appreciated. There were too many stories that started like that and ended with closets filled with skeletons or heads falling off.

He started with the pantry. After Steve's description of the pantry's magic, he kind of had to. He opened it, and it was full of food, typical of what he'd expect to find in a pantry, and exactly what they'd been eating—only it was all the _correct_ size. He shut the door and tried to think of something he wanted to find in there.

His mind went blank. Finally, he settled on _piping hot meat pie_ and opened the door. Sitting on the shelf was a meat pie, wrapped in a fold of paper, golden crust gleaming, steam rising from the vents. It fit perfectly in his hand.

 _No more minced everything_ , he thought as he took a big bite and groaned. It was delicious.

"Thanks," he said to the pantry, and closed the door. He finished the pie and then wandered off to look at his bedroom now that he could use the bed. The drawer was so tiny, sitting next to the bed leg.

He sat down on the bed and stared at it. Then he slid down onto the floor and stared at it. He picked up the little squares of blanket, the ones he'd curled up under, and held them in his hands. Then he pulled his knees up and set his forehead on them and just…breathed.

He'd known something wasn't right. He hadn't thought for one second it was that Steve _wasn't a giant._ Or that _Steve was the one growing the beans that let people climb up here in the first place._ Maybe he _should_ have figured that one out. Magic beans that grow into giant beanstalks that let you climb up to a giant's cloud kingdom—where it turns out the only thing the giant grows are _beans_? He thought he could be forgiven, though, since it made no damn sense. None of it made any sense.

What did make sense was that Steve was still the same where it counted. Bucky still didn't think this was going to end with his bones buried in the fluffy cloud-ground. He believed Steve wouldn't hurt him. Whatever this was, whatever the story was that Steve couldn’t tell him, he _believed_ that.

It had been a long time since he'd had something he could believe in.

With a sigh, he pulled himself to his feet. He shoved everything into the drawer and put it away, giving it a little shove so it slid back into place. He grinned a little as he spotted the holes in the blankets on the bed and made a mental note to ask Steve about sewing things so he could fix them.

He at least knew where he could find a thimble.

*    *    *

Steve crouched down next to Sam—the goose not the person—and scratched the top of her head. He didn't know how old she was—she'd been here when he arrived, she never seemed to age, and her eyes were deep and infinite, like staring into the night sky—but however many years she'd lived, she loved a good head scratch. She let out a series of quiet, contented honks, and settled herself deeper in her cloud-fluff nest.

"Can I take a peek?"

She eyed him, then heaved herself up. There were two golden eggs in the nest.

"Nice job, Sam. Nice job. Want me to take 'em when I go?" he asked, slowly reaching for them. She waited patiently, so he quickly pulled them out and set them on the cloud next to him.  As she resettled herself, he held up the tiny backpack. "I need someone to take a message to Sam for me."

She pecked the backpack several times, flapped her wings, then let out an earshattering _honk_.

Soon enough, another goose came waddling up and presented herself to Steve. He quickly strapped the backpack onto her. He didn't have to tell her to take the message it contained to Sam-the-person. He _couldn't_ tell her to take the message to Sam. He didn't speak goose. But they all knew, thanks to Sam himself, that if Steve showed up with a backpack, it meant they needed to bring it to him, and they were always happy to do what Sam said.

He watched the goose, tiny backpack almost hidden in her white feathers, spiral up into the sky and then crash through the clouds. She'd find him. The geese always did. The message she was carrying would fill Sam in on what had happened with Bucky and he'd pass it onto Nat.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky's new perception of Steve as _Steve_ , instead of as Steve the giant, changed surprisingly little—but the changes it did make weren't small.

Bucky kept milking Rose. They were used to each other now, his hands had built up the endurance, and he enjoyed it. It was peaceful, and she was content to let him rest his forehead on her flank and not exist for a time. Afterwards, he was relaxed and calm in a way he couldn’t remember experiencing, and it felt good to be useful.

He kept tending the bean plants, watering and gently pruning, but he did it in tandem with Steve, who was the right size now to move through them without squashing them flat. It was funny to watch him, because if the plants tended to get handsy with Bucky, they were positively determined to grope Steve. He was constantly having to unpluck and uncurl as he worked.  

He'd feed the geese, careful around Sam, who still held a grudge. He tried talking to her, but she lowered her head and hissed at him, so he _stopped_ trying to talk to her. Steve just shrugged and said, "Geese are stubborn."

He did ask one morning, "Why the geese? The regular geese I mean, not Sam."

At first he thought he'd asked another question Steve couldn't answer. His head was bowed as he contemplated his boots and when he started talking, Bucky _still_ thought he wasn't going to answer it. "Did you know that when a lord's men are fighting, they'll strip their people's homes bare? Take all the food, slaughter the animals. Leave them with nothing, leave them to starve so they can eat. This isn't the opposing forces." The tiny vein throbbing in Steve's temple was the only sign of anger; his voice was calm, even, conversational. "These are the people they're supposed to be protecting."

Bucky closed the distance between them and touched Steve's arm. It was like iron, but Steve looked up and gave him a brief smile, so Bucky didn't pull away.

"But you know what's great about geese? They can be mean. Vicious. People expect it. And they're smart, especially the ones hatched here. They'll hide when someone comes looking to kill them, come back and lay an egg, and hide again. The ones hatched here pass those qualities on."

"So what you're telling me is that you're raising an army of attack geese and sending them out to take over the Kingdom." Bucky squeezed Steve's arm. "Good plan, I approve."

Steve gave him a startled look, then he laughed. "Something like that." Bucky felt him relax under his hand, gave him a quick pat, and let go.

 _That_ was different. Touching Steve was different. Being able to sit together, in the evenings and at meal times, that was different, too. Times where they were together with nothing much to distract them from each other. Before, those times hadn't been a chance to talk—it was hard to talk to someone who was looming huge above you while they cut up your food, or to someone so tiny you were afraid you might crush them if you moved wrong.

Now, they were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, passing the salt or the butter and grumbling in the early mornings while Bucky pushed his hair out of his face. They were sharing space near the fireplace in the evenings while Steve poured over piles of papers—he carefully held them so Bucky wouldn’t accidentally see them; Bucky wondered about stories that weren't Steve's to tell but didn't ask and never looked—and Bucky mended the blankets or read books from the castle's library.  

Some nights they'd play chess. Bucky had always been decent, but Steve was better. Steve was better than anyone Bucky had ever seen. Bucky started playing not to win, but to learn.

They were playing chess one evening, leaning over the board, Bucky studying the pieces, eyes flicking up to Steve, who had a little half-smile on his face, before flicking back to the board, when a voice rang down the hallway: "Hello, the castle."

Steve beamed and jumped to his feet. "Hey, Sam!"

Bucky rose more slowly, and he didn't follow Steve out of the sitting room.

The last people he'd seen that weren't Steve had been Lord Pierce's men, standing guard over him at the bottom of the beanstalk. He'd almost forgotten there could be people that weren't Steve. Realistically, no, of course he hadn't forgotten. He'd known there was still an entire world out there—one he was going to have to go back to—but it had been easy to let that knowledge fall by the wayside. 

"Isn't this cosy." A slender, pale woman with short red hair and a sharp face wandered into the sitting room, gaze roaming over Bucky, over the chess board, the fire, the two mugs sitting next to the board. "You must be the Jack."

Bucky lifted his chin, gazing back at her. "Bucky."

"So I've heard." It wasn't challenging, not quite. It wasn't hostile. It wasn't…Bucky didn't know what it was. And not knowing what it was, he figured the best thing to do was say nothing. He inclined his head. The corner of her mouth ticked up ever so slightly. 

He was saved by Steve coming into the room, followed by a tall, dark skinned man, with short cropped hair and a wide smile. "Nat, what are you doing to Bucky?" Steve chided.

"Nothing."

"Good. Bucky, this is Natasha." He nodded to the redhead. "And this is Sam."

"Hey," Sam said.

Bucky blinked. " _That's_ who you named the goose after?"

A tiny, muffled, feminine snort came from behind him and Sam groaned. Steve started to laugh.

"Sorry, it's just, you don't look anything like a goose."

The three of them exchanged a look Bucky didn't understand, and he added another tally to the list of things that didn't make sense.

"I don't know about anyone else, but I could use a nice, warming mug of tea after the trip up," Sam said. "Nat?"

"I wouldn't say no."

"Tea I can do," Steve said. "Bucky, you feel like helping?"

"Yes," he said, maybe a little too emphatically, but he did not want to be left alone with them.

Steve's smile was soft, and he jerked his head in a _come on, then_ gesture. Bucky came on, following him down the hall and into the kitchen.

Steve set the kettle to boiling while Bucky measured the tea leaves into the pot. While Bucky got down four mugs, Steve dug out a tray and put it on the bench, then turned to watch Bucky, leaning back. "Don't worry too much about Nat."

"Too much." Bucky stopped what he was doing and turned to face Steve, a mug in each hand. "I shouldn’t worry _too much_."

Steve nodded once.

"Right." He set the mugs on the tray and rearranged them until the kettle whistled. Steve poured the water into the teapot, Bucky popped the lid on, and then Steve lifted the tray and Bucky followed Steve back down the hall, only feeling a little like he was walking to his doom.

Natasha and Sam had taken his and Steve's place at the chess board. "Were you black or white?" Sam asked.

"Me?" Bucky said.

"You."

"Uh, white."

"Hmmm."

"Why?"

"No reason."

"You were doing surprisingly well." The smile Nat gave to Sam's sudden glare could only be described as evil. "Maybe even a little better than Sam usually does."  At Sam's outraged huff, she added, "But maybe not."

Bucky ran a hand through his hair and once more opted for silence.

"You wanted tea, Sam. Come and get tea," Steve said, setting the tray down on the huge, low wooden table that sat before the fireplace, chairs and ottomans and a long couch arranged around it.

"I'll come and get your tea," he muttered. "We're having a game sometime, you and me," he told Bucky.

Bucky glanced at Steve, then back at Sam. "Sure?"

"Good." Sam poured tea into all four mugs and handed them around—leaving Bucky's to last, and he couldn't help feel like that wasn't an accident—and they all chose seats: Natasha an overstuffed, highbacked chair, Sam the matching one across from her, Steve the couch. Bucky, after a minute's hesitation, sat on the couch with him.

The next few minutes were mostly involved with gently blowing on hot tea to cool it, settling in, in Natasha' case rearranging the cushions on the chair until she was satisfied, and just generally getting as comfortable as possible.

Bucky wasn't getting comfortable. Bucky was getting tenser by the second. "Bucky?" Steve must have noticed. "You okay?"

"Fine. I'm fine." He gulped his tea, his still too hot tea, and it _burned_. His eyes bulged with the effort not to cough, not to spit it out, and he could see Steve fighting not to laugh.

He gently patted Bucky's shoulder. "Of course you are."

"Bucky." Natasha, looking more like a cat than anyone he'd ever seen, blinked slowly at him.

"Yes?"

"This isn't a social visit."

"Thanks, Nat," Steve said. "It's good to see you, too."

She smiled at Steve. "Not just a social visit." Her smile faded as her gaze flicked back to Bucky. "Steve filled us in on the basics of why you're up here. About what Pierce wanted you to do, what will happen if you go back to where you were."

Cold trickled into his gut, feeling a little like hurt, a little like betrayal. He kept it off his face, but a big, warm hand curled over his arm.

He refused to look.

"Bucky." Steve's voice was soft, like they were the only two people in the room. "Bucky," he said again and he couldn’t _help_ looking, the feel of that voice dragging his head around. "I didn't tell them for fun. I told them because they needed to know what we were dealing with, what it would mean to find somewhere you'd be safe. _Safe generally_ and _safe from Pierce_ aren't the same thing."

Shock drove the cold away. Shock and sure and certain knowledge, because for Steve to know that meant… "You know Lord Pierce."

Steve's hand tightened on his arm. "I know Lord Pierce."

Bucky stared at him, then he dragged his gaze away to stare at Sam and Natasha. They both nodded. He pulled in a breath and let it out slowly, then he nodded, too. He turned back to Steve. "I feel like I spend all my time saying sorry for getting you wrong."

"Nah," Steve said, gently teasing, "only about half the time."

"I'll try and do better." He covered Steve's hand with his own and pressed down hard before letting go.

"Don't worry about it."

"As Nat was saying," Sam said, "knowing what we had to deal with, we talked to some people, tossed around some different ideas, and we've got four options for you. Five, if you're interested in a life on the sea, but some people can't handle boats so that one may be an automatic no."

"I get seasick while the boat's tied at the dock, so probably not a good idea."

"Scratch that one, then." Sam popped the snap on his belt pouch and pulled out a sheaf of parchment. "Here." He stretched to hand them to Bucky, who took them. "These are all the details, work, weather, what you can expect, except for names and locations."

Natasha's smile was all teeth, and Bucky would have sworn some of them were pointed. "You don't find that out until you're actually there."

"Take your time, think about it. We'll come back in a week or so, see if you think any of them would be a good fit for you."

"If any of them are," Steve added. "You don't have to pick one. You can go wherever you want. We're not going to force you to go someplace you don't want to."

"I know, Steve." They stared at each other for a long moment then Sam spoke.

"But if you do go somewhere _that we went to a lot of trouble finding for you_ , you'll have a ready-made start. So I'd think about it long and hard before haring off on your own."

"I will." His eyes flicked to Sam's. "And, uh, thanks. For this," he waved the pile of papers, "all of this." He knew they hadn't done it for him, they didn't know him, beyond guy who Steve had taken in, they'd done it for Steve, and probably so Steve could get rid of him faster, but whatever their reasons, they'd still _done it._   


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky dropped a handful of crunchy bean pods in the basket. He was gentle with them. It was hard not be when the plant they'd come from was waving gently in the non-existent breeze, reaching out the occasional vine to curl around his hands as he and Steve harvested the crop of dried pods.

Steve had assured him they weren't alive, couldn’t think, didn't feel pain—not more than any other plant, anyway, which was good since they were getting pulled up tomorrow—but Bucky still didn't want to think too hard about the way they moved.

Just like he was trying not to think too hard about the four possible options for his future Sam had handed over. He'd been studying them over the past five days. He'd talked them over with Steve. None were bad. Two were strange. Not as strange as a cloud kingdom with a sometimes giant, a goose who laid golden eggs, and bean plants which did a good imitation of wanting to cuddle, but still. Strange.

All seemed viable. None were appealing. Bucky was starting to suspect the _going_ _to_ wasn't the problem. No, he was starting to think the lack of appeal was entirely because of the _leaving_.

So no, he wasn't going to think about it. Not until he had to.

He was, however, going to grin while he watched Steve untangle the tendrils and vines from around his hands, his arms, pull them off his shirt and drag them away from his collar.

The bean plants might like Bucky, but they _loved_ Steve.

"Need a hand?"

"No, I'm fine. I've got it. Just let me…" Steve wriggled, pulling the last vine from under his shirt, and threaded it back into the plant. "There." He frowned at it when it tried to wriggle loose and it went quiet under his gaze. "You just about done?"

"Completely done." He held up his basket. "What now?"

"Now we get the beans out of their pods."

"More magic?"

"Nope. That we have to do by hand."

*    *    *

After dinner they settled by the fire, comfy on the floor with pillows propping them up, the bean pods in a basket between them, each with a large bag beside them to hold the beans.

Steve showed Bucky how to split the pods, how to use his thumb to gently push the beans free, each one dropping into the bag. The empty pods they dropped into another basket. He made it look easy, so Bucky picked up a bean pod and gave it a try…

…greatly misjudging how much force was needed. Dry, hard, beans ricocheted around the room and bounced off Steve's head.

"Not so rough," Steve said with a laugh, plucking some up and tossing them into the bag.

Bucky scrambled after the others, then sat back to watch Steve's fingers move, swift and sure and strong, flicking open the pods and sliding out the beans, letting them _plink plink plink_ down into the bag. "You're good at this."

"I've had a lot of practice."

"Steve?"

"I'm not shelling your beans."

"I know _that_." Steve flashed him a quick grin. Bucky hesitated, but he was allowed to ask, he just knew Steve might not answer. "How long have you been up here?"

Steve's hands stilled. Bucky was almost starting to regret asking when Steve said, "Too long." He sighed. "Not long enough."

"That's nice and clear. Thanks."

Steve laughed quietly. "Glad I could sort that out for you."

Bucky left it at that, concentrating on shelling his beans.

He almost dropped them when Steve said, "It's been almost six years, now, give or take a bit."

"Long time."

"Mmm." _Plink plink plink_ went the beans. "Not going to ask how I got up here?"

"Didn't want to push my luck."

"As if you could," Steve scoffed and it sent a burst of unexpected warmth through him.

He glanced up. Steve was smiling at him, but there was something in his eyes, hidden behind the blue. Something dark. "How'd you wind up here?" he asked, fingers curling around a bean pod.

Steve raised a single bean, holding it delicately between thumb and forefinger.

"You climbed a beanstalk."

"I climbed a beanstalk." 

"Why?" he asked, then shook his head, because that darkness had flashed, cold and deep. "No, not why."

Steve looked at him curiously and it hit him that Steve didn't know. He had no idea what Bucky could read in his eyes.

"Tell me the story instead," he said, turning his attention back to the bean pod. "If you want to."

"Well. Without the why it's not that much of a story."

"Nope."

"Nope?"

"Storyteller doesn't get to judge that." Bucky glanced up and smiled. "That's my job."

"Oh, is it now?"

"Yup."

"Fine. I'd better do it properly then." He cleared his throat. "Once upon a time—"

Bucky gave a startled laugh.

Steve shot him a quelling glare.

"Sorry."

"I should think so. As I was saying: Once upon a time, a man named Steve stumbled upon an old woman. He was." There was a pause. Bucky abandoned the bean pods in favour of watching Steve, whose eyes were distant. "He was lost in every possible way."

Bucky forgot to breathe.

"She offered to trade him a handful of magic beans for whatever he owned that he thought was of equal value." Steve rolled the single bean around in his hand. "He told her he had nothing that was worth as much as that. So the old woman said that she valued his honesty, and as a reward Steve could give her whatever he had that he no longer wished to be burdened with, and in exchange she'd give him the beans."

"What did Steve give her?" Bucky asked, soft and low.

"His horse. His armour. His weapons. His shield. She took them and poured the magic beans into his hand and sent him on his way. When he planted them, his beanstalk grew and when he climbed it, he found himself here. But that's a story for another day," he said, tossing the bean in the bag and scooping up another pod.

Bucky stared at him. He didn't mean to. He didn't want to. He couldn’t have stopped if an actual giant—Bloodcrusher himself—crashed through the door. Armour. Horse. Weapons. Shield. "You're a knight."

"I _was_ a knight."

There was something fierce in Steve's eyes, something Bucky had never seen before. Not something to be scared of—he'd learned Steve, and what he'd learned was Steve wasn't someone he had to fear—but it was _fierce_.

"You _were_ a knight," Bucky said firmly and saw it fade.

He blinked and looked away. "Sorry."

Bucky nudged him with his foot. "Don't be stupid."

It got him a huff and a half-smile.

"Wait." Six years. Steve knew Lord Pierce. Knew how bad he was. Used to be a knight. Steve. Steven. "Steven _Rogers_?"

Confused, Steve said, "Yes?"

"Hells," Bucky said, sitting up straight. " _Hells_. You're Sir Rogers."

Steve winced.

"No, I'm sorry. But you are. I'm right. Right?"

"Yeah," Steve sighed. "Yeah, Bucky, you are."

"You challenged Lord Pierce to a duel."

Again, Steve winced. "They still talk about that, huh?"

"Still talk about… Gee, Steve, a knight challenges his liege lord to a duel and then disappears. Why would anyone talk about that?"

"The coward accepted the challenge then tried to have me killed instead of fighting me." Steve squeezed the bean pod he was holding hard enough it snapped in half.

"No one talks about it where he can hear it," Bucky said. "That's a sure way to get a beating or worse. But there's a dozen different stories about you, depending on who you ask. To a lot of people you're a legend."

Steve gave a little half-smile.

"Can I ask… What really happened?"

Steve blew out a long breath and the look he gave Bucky was sharp. "Why?"

It was a loaded question; Bucky could feel it. He knew the answer, but he didn't know how to explain. He groped after words, saying carefully, "Because the stories, they're," he frowned, kept going, knowing this was going to sound stupid, "they're like castle's magic. They make you see what you expect to see. I'm not, I don't want that. I'm interested in you. In Steve. Not in some giant the stories tell me I should expect." He grimaced. "However dumb that sounds."

"Not dumb." Steve's eyes were luminous, the previous darkness faded to a bare shadow. Bucky had a brief flashback to how it felt to be staring up at Steve the giant, the look Steve was giving him was so huge. He looked away.

"Yeah, well." He scooped up a bean pod and started shelling.

"Yeah, well." Steve nudged him with his foot and Bucky couldn't help smiling. "Really want to know? It's not pretty."

"It's Lord Pierce, Steve. I know it's not pretty."

There was a long, weighted silence, long enough Bucky looked up. Steve was watching him. "Bucky," he said. "You don't have to call him Lord. He's _not_ your lord anymore, if he ever was. I know it's not respect that's keeping the lord in front of his name and you don't owe him your fear. He's never going to get his hands on you again. I swear."

Bucky swallowed hard. It was as terrifying an idea as it was wildly attractive. "On your honour as not a knight?"

"On my honour as not a knight," Steve said solemnly and held out his hand.

Bucky took it and squeezed hard as Steve's fingers closed around his. He wondered if this was what it felt like to swear fealty to someone—or to have it sworn to you. He held on, because he needed to hold on, a storm swirling through him at the thought of what … _Pierce_ would do to him if he ever heard Bucky not addressing him by his title, but he rode it out and it faded. He wriggled his fingers and Steve let him go and he fought the sudden urge to grab his hand back.

"Okay?"

"I'm okay."

"Still want the story?"

"If you want to tell it."

"Telling it," Steve said wryly. "I could honestly do without telling it, but I'm not sure how else you're going to find out. I mean, I guess I could write it down, but that seems like a lot of work."

"You could dictate it and _I_ could write it down, but then you'd have told it anyway, so I'd have done all that work for nothing."

"Good point. I'd hate to make you waste your time."

"Steve?" He leaned forward. "Tell me."

Squaring up his shoulders like he was ready for a fight, Steve said, "I was one of Pierce's knights, but he didn't send me out with his fighting forces like most of the others. Me, he sent to tournaments and took with him on formal visits. I was, I _am_ ," he grimaced, "very good with a sword and shield, and he liked to show me off, have me win duels for him. I was always kept close. It meant I didn't get to see a lot of what went on his lands."

"You didn't miss much."

"I did, Bucky, and that was the problem. I don't know if it was deliberate. If it was, I made it easy. I was young, I was stupid. I took too much at face value—"

"Pierce is good at that jackal's smile, Steve. I've seen him fool a lot of people with it."

"Even so. I should have looked harder, asked more questions. But like you said, he's good at putting on that smile, at smoothing everything over. At making it look like things have been set right when nothing's changed at all. Or when it's worse than before."

"I know exactly what you mean," Bucky murmured, because he'd seen what Steve was talking about. There'd been a group of farmers who'd banded together and shown up when Bucky had, petitioning for Pierce to solve their problems with the local viscount who'd diverted the river, withering their crops. They'd been 'attacked by bandits' on the way home and died to a man. It had certainly solved the _viscount's_ problem.

"Then I met Sam at a tournament—"

"Sam?"

"Not the goose."

"I didn't think you meant the goose," Bucky said, kicking Steve lightly.

The corner of Steve's mouth quirked up. "I'd put money on her," he said. "But yes, Sam's…descended from royalty. He doesn't fight in the tournaments, but he sometimes attends for other reasons. We got talking, got friendly, and he opened my eyes to a few things."

"I know you didn't challenge Pierce to a duel at a tournament."

"No?"

"No, if that'd happened that would be all people talked about. It would be the only story. Can you imagine?"

"I can, and you're right, I didn't. But after I met Sam, I started deliberately going out into the countryside, visiting the towns, and what I saw was… It was bad, Bucky."

Bucky nodded, because he knew.

"I helped where I could, and I brought what I couldn't to Pierce. The guards abusing their power, the noble hunts running across good farm land and destroying crops. Everywhere I looked, people were scared. I guess he was sick of it because the next skirmish with the neighbouring lord, he sent me out with his fighters."

"Trying to distract you?"

"Or keep me occupied. Either way, it didn't work. That's where I learned that when two nobles fight for territory it's the common folk who pay. Pierce's knights, who are supposed to protect people, tore through one of Pierce's towns, stripped it bare, and killed the few who tried to protest. I stopped what I could, but there was only me. Even the ones who didn't join in weren't willing to speak out against it."

Steve's knuckles were white around the broken bean pod.

"When Pierce rode out to congratulate his men on a good's days fighting, I demanded justice for the townsfolk, for the dead. Pierce refused to give it. He didn't care. I was his knight, I'd sworn fealty to him, but that oath went both ways. If I demanded justice, by his oath he was bound to give it, and he refused. He dismissed it, like it was nothing. Like his oath was nothing."

"So you challenged him to a duel," Bucky whispered.

"I challenged him to a duel. In front of all his gathered knights, all the surviving townsfolk, the mayor, the sheriff, two priests. Plenty of witnesses. Plenty of people who'd talk. He couldn't force them all to silence. Word would leak out and duelling's legal. It wasn't _smart_ , it would have been a violation of my oaths if he hadn't broken his first, but it _wasn't_ against the law. And if he accepted and I killed him, I wouldn't have done a damn thing wrong. Not legally and sure as hells not morally. If ever there was a man who needed killing—"

Steve stopped. He just _stopped_ , like a horse refusing to leap a river, and then he started again. Calmer. "He couldn't refuse, not in front of all those witnesses, not without being accused of cowardice. He accepted. But the next morning, instead of fighting me, instead of meeting me on the field, he sent his men to kill me. The men, I wouldn't have expected it of them, but Rumlow—

"You know Pierce made him his heir? Acknowledged by the Council of Lords and everything."

"So I've heard. I…half-expected it after Pierce's poor wife died without giving him a child, since Rumlow's the second son of an Earl—and he's always been willing to do anything Pierce wants, so I wasn't surprised when Rumlow tried to take my head off." Steve's smile was a wolf's grin. "He didn't bring enough men. I ran, because it was run, or kill them all, or die. I wasn't willing to kill them." He paused and held up the broken bean pod, studying it thoughtfully. "I would have been willing to die if it meant Pierce died first, but not for nothing."

"Hells, Steve." The thought of Steve dying lodged in his throat, hard and sharp. He had to lean forward and touch him, wrap his hand around his ankle, since it was all he could reach.

Steve glanced down at it, then up at his face, then tossed the bean back in the basket and patted his hand. "I didn't."

"I know. I just…"

"It's okay, Bucky."

He nodded and gripped Steve's ankle more tightly, like he needed to stop him from running off.

"Do you want the rest? I know I said it was a story for another day, but you can have it now if you want."

"Does it involve you saying you don't mind dying?" He lifted his head to glare at Steve. "Cause if it does, I don't want to hear it."

"No, Bucky. I promise."

"If it does, I'm gonna dump this basket of empty pods over your head," he warned.

"I give you my word."

"As not a knight."

"As not a knight," Steve repeated.

"Okay, then. Tell me." He didn't let go of Steve's ankle. He was still stuck on _willing to die_ ; it had threaded itself through his knuckles and around his finger bones and locked them in place.

Steve didn't seem to mind.  He settled back,  returning to shelling the beans, and the _plink plink plink_ took on a soothing rhythm. "You know what happened after that. I rode and rode, my poor horse was so patient, stuck eating grass and sleeping under trees when she was used to grain and fine stables, and then I encountered the old woman."

 _I remember you said you were lost in every possible way._ "I remember," he said, giving Steve's ankle a little squeeze.

"When I climbed the beanstalk I found the castle, and I found the giant. But he was old, Bucky. He was so old, ancient, gnarled, he was like an oak."

"Was he an actual giant? Or was he like you?"

"I don't know. I was expecting a giant. I found a giant. When you climbed the beanstalk and found the terrible giant," they shared a brief smile, "I still looked like me, just big, so it makes sense he'd still look like him, just big." He shook his head. "I don't fully understand the magic. He died before he could explain it all to me."

"He died?"

Steve kept his eyes on his hands. "A week after I got up here. I did what I could to help. There's only so much you can do when you're small and someone's a giant. But I made sure he wasn't alone. He seemed to appreciate it. He told me stories of the castle, of the people who'd found their way here on beanstalks. He told me about Sam—she didn't have a name then, she was just the goose that laid the golden eggs."

He went quiet, stayed quiet long enough Bucky thought maybe he was done, then he gave a little sigh.

"I don't know if he was the giant from the stories. The bad stories, the ones that end in blood and bones. They were around a long time before I climbed the beanstalk. Maybe he was. Maybe he was a terrible giant. Or maybe he wasn't." He lifted his head, a strange look in his eyes. "Stories aren't always what people think they are. But he was old and he was dying and he was alone. So I stayed with him and I talked to him and I gave him what comfort I could, and in exchange he gave me his kingdom."  

"And you send bean seeds out into the world, so people can steal from you."

"Something like that, Bucky. Something like that."

*    *    *

Steve wasn't sleeping. He'd tried, lying awake staring at a distant ceiling he couldn’t see, before fumbling with the matches and lighting the candle in the glass chimney that lived beside his bed.

Which was an improvement only in the sense that now he could see the ceiling. He sighed. He wasn't surprised he wasn't sleeping, not after everything he and Bucky had talked about. He was surprised at himself for telling all that to Bucky. He wasn't surprised, once he'd thought about it, that Bucky had figured out that once upon a time he'd been Sir Rogers. Bucky was far, far from stupid and with enough hints in front of him of course he'd figured it out.

Steve hadn't had to tell him. He hadn't had to confirm it all. But Bucky had said _I'm interested in you. I'm interested in Steve_ and the strangling grip around his heart, that these days felt more like a caress, had squished the words right out of him.

He lay staring at the ceiling, which wasn't all that improved by being able to see it, then rolled out of bed, pulled on a pair of loose trousers, scooped up the candle, and walked down the hall to the kitchen. If he had to be awake, he may as well do it accompanied by a drink and a snack.

Turned out, it wasn't an entirely original idea.

Bucky was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping from a mug. There was a pile of parchment next to him, and his eyebrows went up when Steve stepped through the door. He lowered his mug, set it on the table, and wordlessly pushed over the plate of—

"Pancakes?" Steve asked, surprised.

"Nothing that fancy. They're just bannock, but there's jam." He pointed at the jar, a knife sticking out of it. "Kettle's still hot."

Steve took advantage of it and went to fix himself a mug of tea, packing the tea ball with the mix of leaves and herbs he knew were supposed to be good for sleep. The scent rising as he poured boiling water over it was soothing and sweet—it was only a pity the taste didn't match.

When it was done, he sat across from Bucky, helping himself to bannock and jam, nibbling on it, then took a swig of tea, using the sweetness of the jam to help with the tea's musty flavour. "Couldn't sleep, huh?"

"Not really. You?"

He shrugged. "Not surprising," he said, giving voice to his earlier thoughts, "considering who we were talking about."

"True." He laid his hand  gently on the parchment. "I've also been thinking about these."

"Yeah?" He worked hard to keep his _everything_ neutral because he wasn't looking forward to the day Bucky left.

"Yeah. And I was thinking. Wondering." He stopped and muttered, "Hells," under his breath, then met Steve's eyes. "What if I didn't leave?"

For a second, Steve wasn't sure he'd heard him right. "What?"

"What if I stayed here? Instead of leaving for one of these places," he tapped the parchment, "not that they're not great, not that I don't appreciate the work you've all done for me. But what if I stayed here with you. I can be useful. I think I've been useful?"

Bucky's sudden doubt, his uncertainty, spelled out on his face, ringing through his voice, made Steve lean forward and say, "You have."

"Okay, good." He gave Steve a quick smile. "I'd like to keep doing it. Here." There was a long pause, Steve didn't know what to say, and Bucky tentatively added, "Please?"  

The word _yes_ rushed to Steve's lips, but he snatched it back. It wasn't that simple. "Bucky," he said softly, after another long pause, and Bucky held up a hand.

"No, it's okay. I get it. I shouldn’t have asked." He was nodding, to himself Steve thought. "That was," he laughed a little, "that was rude, huh? You took me in, let me stay until Pierce would think I died, your friends found me all these places to go, all of that after I kept thinking you were _bad_ , and here's me, trying to take advantag—"

Steve cut him off. "Bucky." Firm. Hard. Bucky's eyes widened. "No. That is not what's happening. Asking to stay here is not taking advantage of me. There's nothing wrong with asking. I just—" He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. This one was no more helpful than the one in his bedroom had been. "Saying yes isn't as simple as I want it to be. Because I want to say yes," he told the ceiling.

"Oh," Bucky said softly. Steve snuck a peek at him. His eyes were still wide, but the shock was gone; they were surprised, soft, grateful.

The grateful struck a discordant note. He leaned forward, arms on the table. Not quite reaching out. "Not as a favour to you. Not to keep you safe from Pierce. I want to say yes because I want to say yes. Because I like having you here."

The shock was back, shock and something undefinable, but the strangling grip around Steve's heart gave a feather-light squeeze. Then Bucky smiled, feather-light became vine-tight, and he smiled helplessly back.

"Oh," Bucky said again, in a very different tone. Accepting. Happy. Edged with understanding. "The stories that aren't just yours to tell."

"Exactly. If you stayed, there's things you'd need to know and it's not just my decision to tell you. And I don't know it they'd trust you enough."

"I don't," Bucky began, then stopped. Started again. "No," he said slowly, "I understand. Whatever it is, it's obviously important. And they don't know me. I climbed up here to steal Sam for _Pierce_. Why would they trust me?" He fiddled with his mug. "But here's the thing, Steve. I don't need to know what you're doing. They don't trust me, and they've got no reason to, but _I_ trust _you_. That means I trust what you're doing. If I stay, I don't need to know."

Steve had had a lot of things said to him in his life: good things, bad things, occasionally vile things. He'd never had words slide inside him and nest in his soul the way Bucky's _I trust you_ did. He had to take a moment, not sure what to do with the feeling, before he could reply.

Unfortunately, before that moment could happen, his strangled heart took control of his mouth and said, "What if I want you to know?"

Bucky blinked at him. "Uh, I don't know. I mean, I'd like to know? I think. But I don't know how you're going to get Sam or Natasha to trust me."

The answer burst into full growth, so obvious he didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before: they wouldn’t trust the first one, because Pierce had been involved, but they could do it again.

Steve knew it would work. He already knew what kind of person Bucky was, and the bean plants already loved him.

All he had to do was get Sam and Nat to agree. And Bucky.

"What if I had an idea about that?" he asked, sounding deeply satisfied, picking up his mug and taking a sip, not even caring that it tasted like mouldy dirt.

Bucky eyed him. "Why am I suddenly worried?"

Steve just grinned.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve's idea turned out to be another beanstalk.

Bucky sat quietly in one of the sitting room's highbacked chairs while Steve pitched it to Sam and Natasha. They'd both turned to give Bucky dark looks when Steve had started the conversation with, "So, Bucky's decided he'd like to stay here," and it hadn't gotten a lot better after that.

"Can I just have it formally noted that I'm not a huge supporter of this plan?" Sam said.

"You can," Steve replied.

"I already planted the beans and climbed the beanstalk," Bucky interjected. He wasn't sure exactly what Steve's plan was supposed to accomplish, but he felt the need to point out that he'd already done it.

"You planted a handful of beans that Pierce gave you," Natasha replied without looking at him. "Those beans can't be trusted."

Bucky, remembering the icy chill in Pierce's eyes as he'd poured the beans into Bucky's palm, his quiet, _These had best grow, James, or you won't enjoy the consequences,_ shivered. "You're right."

All three turned to face him.

"Trusting anything Pierce touched is a bad idea."

"Which is why we have Bucky plant another handful of beans," Steve said, like Bucky had proven his point.

Natasha and Sam sighed simultaneously, and Sam said, "Can I talk to you for a minute? In private?" before dragging Steve off to the corner. Their voices were too low for Bucky to make out what they were saying, but he wasn't trying to listen, anyway.

It effectively left him alone with Natasha. She gave him a long look. Bucky wasn't sure whether it was better to meet it or look away, but he'd done nothing wrong, at far as he knew, so he lifted his chin and met it. It wasn't easy, but at least her eyes were warm, even if they flashed strangely gold when the light hit them, held nothing of Pierce's chill.

If she decided he was a threat, he felt like she'd deal with him quickly and efficiently. The same went for Sam, who was now arguing—maybe? It was hard to tell—quietly with Steve. It was trust of a kind. Not that they wouldn’t kill him, but that if they decided they had to it would be for good reasons, probably to protect Steve, and that it would be fast.

"You actually care about him," she said.

"Uh, yes?" Bucky replied, puzzled.

"I wasn't sure."

"Well, I do," he said, brows drawn down, daring her to say he shouldn't while he tried very hard not to let her see just exactly how much.

Her lips twitched and she got up to join Steve and Sam's conversation.  

Bucky made himself comfortable in the chair and waited.

Whatever their disagreements, whatever the sticking points, they sorted it out between them, which was how Bucky found himself standing on a dark deserted moor with only the three of them for company.

He had to stamp the ground a few times, reacquainting himself with the feel of hard earth under his feet, so different from the fluffy cloud-ground. According to Steve, they were in the middle of nowhere, the closest human habitation hundreds of miles away.

Steve had promised him what felt like decades ago that Bucky wasn't trapped in the cloud kingdom, and tonight he'd proved it. He'd dropped a handful of beans into a hole dug into the fluffy cloud-ground and, minutes later, a gigantic beanstalk had burst into life, twisting down and plunging through the clouds.

Bucky had peered through the hole it left and seen it twirling and twisting its way down to the ground below. After that, it had been a simple climb down the stalk. Bucky wasn't sure why it was simple, they were climbing down a giant bean plant, but it made as much sense as anything else, so he hadn't questioned it.

He didn't know how Sam and Natasha had gotten here. They'd simply walked out of the dark.

Now the four of them were standing around the campfire Sam had started, Sam and Natasha watching him silently while Steve held out his hand.

Bucky fought the urge to bolt into the darkness. This was too much like last time. The night, the fire, the silent watching. Steve opened his fingers and there were a handful of beans. The same as the beans Pierce had poured into his palm.

He lifted his eyes to Steve's. They were calm and warm. It helped. "What happens if they don't grow?"

"Don't worry, Bucky. They'll grow."

That…wasn't an answer. He didn't ask again. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Hold out your hand." Bucky obeyed and Steve poured the beans into Bucky's palm. "Now go plant them."

He knew how wide the stalk would be if it grew, so he walked away from the fire and dropped to his knees. The dirt was hard, too hard for his fingers, and he hadn't brought anything to dig with, but Natasha appeared behind him and offered him a knife-edged trowel. He glanced up at her as he accepted it, but she was expressionless.

Too much like last time.

It easily cut through the turf, through the dirt, and he dropped the bean seeds in, patted the dirt over them, and stood. He gave Natasha back her trowel after cleaning it on his pants, then stood on the other side of the fire where he'd be able to see the stalk if it started to grow.

He didn't realise how tense he was until Steve moved to his side and put a hand on his shoulder, and he jumped. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Bucky scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Sorry."

"Not what I asked," Steve said. "I asked what was wrong."

"Nothing."

"Try again?"

He sighed and gave in. "Just reminds me a little too much of the last time I had to do this." He tried for a smile and was pretty sure he failed miserably. "At least you guys won't kill me if it doesn't grow."

Steve's face fell. "I'm sorry, Bucky. I didn't think…"

"Okay, no," Sam said. "I'm not having that. Nat? I'm thinking food. There's bunnies on this moor that have never seen a person. What say we catch us a few?"

Natasha cocked her head, glancing between Bucky and Steve, then nodded, and the two of them vanished into the darkness.

"It's okay, Steve. Really. It's just me being stupid."

The firelight flickering on Steve's face wasn't enough to let Bucky read his eyes, but it was enough for him to tell Steve was angry. He didn't know if it was at him or at himself, but it was there plain as day.

"No. No, it's not. I didn't even think about what that must have been like for you. Pierce's men standing over you, waiting for those beans to grow, knowing what you were going to face at the top." Steve curled his fingers around Bucky's arm and he couldn’t help leaning into him. "You thought you were going to die, didn't you?"

He nodded, wrapping his arms around himself.

Steve's jaw worked, then he nodded once, stepped away, and gracefully sank to the ground. "Come here."

"Come where?"

"Here." He spread his legs and patted the space between his knees. Bucky stared at him. "Trust me?"

He didn't have an argument against that, especially not when he desperately wanted to do what Steve was asking. He sat, a little awkwardly, where Steve indicated and then held himself still. He jumped when Steve wrapped his arms around him and then he was leaning back against Steve's chest. Steve pulled his knees up, so they were bracketing his body, and Steve's chin was on his shoulder. It should have been awkward. It wasn't. It was warm and comfortable, and Bucky closed his eyes while Steve said, mouth so close to his ear his breath ruffled Bucky's hair, "You're safe, you're here with me, and no matter what nothing bad is going to happen to you."

He couldn't do anything but believe him. "Okay."

He felt Steve smile. "Okay."

They sat together, Bucky slowly relaxing even farther into Steve as their breathing began to mesh. He could feel Steve's heart beating against his back. He couldn't remember when he'd been warmer. He did kind of miss the fluffy cloud-ground, because the actual ground was hard under his ass, but he could live with it.

"You look comfy," Nat said when she strode back into the firelight. There were a pair of skinned and gutted rabbits dangling from one hand and she grinned at them with all her teeth.

Steve wrapped his arms more tightly around Bucky, holding him in place when he would have scrambled to his feet. "Which one of us are you talking to?" Steve asked, amusement humming through his voice, and Bucky gradually relaxed.

"Hmm," was her only response. "Sam, are you coming with those sticks?"

There was a loud flapping noise and Bucky frowned in confusion. A few moments later, Sam strode into the light. "I swear, Nat, you will be the death of me." He was carrying a handful of long, straight sticks.  "Yes, I have your sticks."

She held out the hand not filled with bunnies.

"I want you to understand how hard it is to find long straight stick on the moors at night."

"I'm sure it was very hard."

"Uh huh." He handed them over with a grumble. "You'd better appreciate them."

"Sam?" Steve called.

"What?"

"They're the finest sticks I've ever seen," he said solemnly.

Sam's eyes narrowed. "Uh huh," he said again. "You look awfully cosy there."

"Bucky was cold."

Bucky didn't say anything.

"I notice you're not offering to snuggle with either of us to keep us warm."

"Snuggle with Nat."

"Yeah, Sam." She smiled, wide. "Snuggle with me."

"I don't think so." He threw himself down in front of the fire. Bucky didn't know whether it was deliberate or not, but he didn't block Bucky's view of where he'd planted the beans. "Are you feeling better?" he asked Bucky.

"Yeah. I was just being—"

Steve loudly cleared his throat.

"I'm fine."

Sam laughed and went to help Nat with the sticks. It didn't take long before they were set up, and the smell of roasting meat filled the air. Not long after that, and they were munching on delicious roast rabbit. When they were done, they tossed the bones in the fire and Natasha threw him a piece of cloth to wipe his hands.  

He never stirred from his spot in front of Steve. With a full belly and the warmth of Steve at his back, cheerful conversation bouncing between Steve, Natasha, and Sam, he couldn't be farther from the memory of waiting under the hard gazes and sharper weapons of Pierce's men. He spoke up occasionally, but they were talking about people and places and things he didn't know, and he was content to let it wash over him while he watched the spot in the dirt.

Gradually, his eyes began to droop. He fought them, but they insisted. As they slipped shut, he curled sideways to press his cheek against Steve's chest, one hand tucked between them. His last clear memory was of Steve gently sweeping the hair off his face, fingers curved to curl around his skull. He sighed quietly and succumbed to sleep.

*    *    *

The first thing he saw when his eyes opened was an endless expanse of towering green. The first thing he heard was, "I told you."

He lifted his head off Steve's thigh, wincing a little since he'd been curled on the cold, hard, definitely not cloud-fluff ground. Steve's hand fell off his shoulders as he scrambled to his feet. "It grew."

"I told you," Steve said again.

Bucky waved a hand at him and ran over to press his palms against it. "This means I get to stay with you, right?"

"You would have got to anyway, but yes. If you want to."

"If you still want to after you hear what we have to say." It was a mumble from Sam, who had an arm flung over his face.

Nat made a sound like a growl from her spot curled neatly with her head on Sam's stomach. "If all of you live that long."

With a sigh, Sam sat up and poked her shoulder. "Come on. I'll take you up to the castle, make you tea while these two take the traditional route."

She opened one eye. "Is that a good idea?"

"The beans grew for him. We've gambled a lot more on that than my wings."

"True." She sat up. "This should be entertaining."

Bucky had no idea what was happening, and he still had no idea what was happening when Sam stretched to his feet, shook himself, spread his arms, wiggled his fingers and, with a poof of feathers, turned into a swan.

A giant swan. A giant, Sam-sized swan.

Bucky stared while he asked Steve in a distant voice, "Is that why you named the goose after him?"

Steve covered his face with his hand. Sam looked deeply unimpressed, long neck twining like a feathery snake as he twisted it to glare at Bucky.

"Sorry. Sorry, but. Why are you a giant swan?"

"He's a swan prince," Natasha said as she, okay, _swung her leg over Sam's back and settled herself between his wings_. "And I'm a beastling and if you're lucky someday I'll explain what that means." Sam flapped his wings, the rush of air setting the fire's ashes dancing. "But first you have a beanstalk to climb."

She crouched down low and Sam raced across the moor, wings beating the air, before he launched himself up and up, circling high until he disappeared from view.

Bucky kept staring at the spot he'd disappeared. "Sam's a swan."

"Swan prince. Sort of. His grandfather was the swan prince who kept a wing when they were changed back to humans. It turned out that all of his descendants can turn into swans."

"Huh."

Steve bumped his shoulder against Bucky's. "It's complicated. But stories usually are."

"Should I ask what a beastling is?"

"I wouldn't. I'm kind of surprised she mentioned it."

"Right." He scratched his head. "Beanstalk?"

"Beanstalk."  

It was an easy climb, as easy to climb up as it had been to climb down. He didn't really remember much about the first time he'd climbed a beanstalk, not beyond being scared. This time it was _fun_ , racing Steve to the next leaf, letting a vine spring back to smack him in the chest. Laughing as Steve climbed past him, nimble and quick. Never once did he feel like he could fall, like the beanstalk's vines were waiting to catch him.

Which was dumb as a bag of doorknobs, but that was how it _felt_. Like the beanstalk was helping him. Normally, Steve explained as they climbed, since it was Bucky's beanstalk he'd be the only that could climb it. That's how they worked. But Steve was the master of the cloud kingdom, and those rules didn't apply to him.

"Handy," Bucky said when they were once more standing on fluffy cloud-ground. He bounced in place, and it felt right to be back where the ground let him do that.

"It can be," he replied and led the way up to the castle.

*    *    *

Hours later, with everyone bathed and changed, fed and refreshed, they gathered in the sitting room.

Bucky didn't hesitate to claim his place next to Steve on the couch, Natasha and Sam once more bracketing it on the high-backed chairs.

"Steve said there were stories that weren't his to tell."

"That's one way of putting it," Natasha said.

"Probably pretty accurate," Sam said.

"Okay?" Bucky said uncertainly. "But I have no idea what that means."

"No reason why you should," Sam replied. "Let me ask you a question instead. What happens if a commoner—a peasant, an apprentice, a farmer—shows up with a pile of gold and tries to spend it?"

That was easy. "They'll get tossed in jail for being a thief and whoever's in charge will confiscate it until the rightful owner can be found. Not that they'd ever look for the owner."

Sam smiled. "What happens if that same someone shows up with a pile of gold they've stolen from a giant? Or tricked from a dragon? Or won by slaying an ogre?"

Bucky stared silently at Sam, then his gaze flicked to Steve, who was watching him intently, to Natasha, who might as well have been a stone for all the emotion she was showing, then back to Sam.

Then he swung around to face Steve. "That's why you scare them. Instead of just letting them take their golden eggs and everything else and go. Because otherwise it wouldn't be a story. That's why you chase them down, that's why you scare them."

"That's why I scare them," Steve said quietly.

"Do you spread the other stories? I know you don't hurt them. I sure as hells know you don't kill them, so those stories, the bloody ones, the ones with the bodies at the bottom of the beanstalks, they've got to be coming from somewhere. They come from you. Right?"

"Some of them." Natasha was watching him like a wolf. "Stories have a way of taking on a life of their own, spreading from person to person, growing bigger and bolder and bloodier with no help needed from us, and the giant and the beanstalk has been around longer than Steve. But we keep it seeded."

"Why?"

"How many nobles, how many rich, powerful merchants, can trace their start back to a story? To a dragon and a riddle, or a talking cat." Steve met his eyes. There was burning in their depths, a fire that reached out and pulled Bucky in. "Or a giant and a beanstalk. How many, Buck?"

Bucky's eyes went wide as the full weight of it hit him. The answer was _lots._ And if Bucky was understanding him right, Steve was saying it was _deliberate_. "Hells, Steve," he breathed.

"Every story that's part of this, it's got a safeguard. For mine, it’s the handful of beans. They won't grow for everyone, only for certain kinds of people. Good people. Strong people. People with good hearts, who hate seeing the way world is."

"They have opinions about people," Bucky said, remembering when Steve had said that very thing to him about the bean plants. He hadn't thought he was _serious_. " _Hells_." He put his head in his hands.

Warm fingers wrapped around the back of his neck. "Breathe, Bucky. It's okay."

"I know why they wouldn't grow for Pierce. Why in the hells did they grow for me? _Twice!_ "

Steve squeezed gently. "Bucky."

"No, Steve. You don't know. Your golden egg laying goose wasn't the first. Not by a long shot. I stole things for him. Things he wanted, things people didn't want to give up, things that were _important_ to them. I snuck into their houses, and sometimes into their lives, and I stole them."

"Did you want to?" Steve asked quietly.

"No, but that doesn't matter, does it? I did it. I never said no."

"Doubt you could have said no, knowing Pierce," Sam said, making Bucky jump. He'd forgotten they were there.

"What would have happened if you'd refused?" Natasha asked. "I mean after Pierce killed you."

It brought him up short. "I don't know."

"I think you do," she said. "He would have sent someone else to get whatever it was he wanted, someone who wouldn't have asked nicely, and they would have left a trail of blood behind."

He shot her an incredulous look. "So it's okay I stole things because at least that way no one got, what, beaten up? I don't think it works like that."

"No," Steve said, one big warm hand closing over Bucky's. "But sometimes all you have are bad choices. Why did you go to Pierce in the first place?"

"What?"

"You told me, that first day when you climbed the beanstalk, that you made a deal with the wrong man for the right reasons. I'm just wondering what those right reasons were."

"Oh." He stared at their hands, where Steve hadn't let go. "You remember that?"

"I do."

He was aware Sam and Natasha were listening, but they faded as he stared at their joined hands. "My sister, Becca. She's smart, smarter than me, but she's also beautiful. When she was fifteen the Baron's son…noticed."

He lifted his head, met Steve's eyes, saw anger there that meant he understood.

"There was nothing I could do to stop it. Our parents had been dead for a couple of years by then, but even if they'd been alive, they couldn’t have helped. But our aunt's in Terrilyn, and she said she'd take Becca, give her a home, a family, if I could get her there. But that was passage on a ship all the way across the sea, and that was money we didn't have. So I went to the lord of our lands."

"Pierce," Steve said, voice so dark that, from anyone else, it would have sent chills down Bucky's spine.

"Pierce." He still remembered the amused contempt in Pierce's ice-blue eyes, the utter chill behind it, like Bucky was a poorly trained dog that might still do an amusing trick with the right incentive. And Bucky had brought that incentive straight to his door. "I did everything like I was supposed to, petitioned for aid on the day he sets aside to hear them, offered my services in exchange for the cost of the passage. It would have been a pittance to him." Bucky snorted. "I guess he gave me what I asked for. He had his men take me aside and said he'd pay her passage if I did one little thing for him." He smiled bitterly. " _Stole_ one little thing for him."

"And once you did it, it was another thing and another and another."

Bucky nodded.

Steve let out a long sigh and squeezed Bucky's hand.

"I did eventually get the money and Becca's safely in Terrilyn." He shook his head. "None of which matters a goddamn, because—"

"Because nothing," Sam said. "You did the best you could with what you had. You didn't know you were making a deal with the devil when you made it, and when the choice is say yes or die—because he would have killed you if you'd refused, Bucky, make no mistake—then you can't say you chose to do any of things you did for him."

"I still did them."

"You did, and people got hurt," Steve said, "and that's something you have to live with, but the true weight of it doesn't belong on your shoulders. And who knows? Maybe you'll have a chance to give it all back someday." Bucky craned his head around to stare at him, but Steve was opaque. Then he smiled warmly. "However you feel, Bucky, the beans grew for you. They did the first time, and they did last night. The bean plants liked you. That's partly how I knew you were trustworthy." He leaned closer, breath warm on Bucky's skin, words for just the two of them. "I would have known anyway."

It made him shiver and curl closer to Steve.

Natasha cleared her throat. Steve straightened, and Bucky lifted his head, could feel heat in his cheeks and knew he was flushing.

"That's why we do this," Natasha said. "Because of Pierce and his ilk. Killing them would be simpler." Natasha smiled, and her teeth were _definitely_ pointed. "But there's more bad ones waiting to replace them. You have to surround the bad ones with better ones before you can cut them out of the herd."

"And that's where the Jacks come in," Sam said.

"Can I ask," Bucky said. "Why _Jacks_?"

Steve chuckled and leaned back on the couch. "Because that was the name of the first. The first to get the beans and climb the beanstalk, only he tried to kill me. We ended up bringing him in on everything. Which was a good decision. He's a duke now, and a damn good one. Good to his people and helps keep the other nobles in check."

"And we have to call them something, so Jacks it is. But it's not just the Jacks," Sam said. "We use the golden eggs to help people in places that haven't changed. We have to be careful, too much gold risks making it worthless or attracting attention, but we funnel it to places that need it, places with good people in power that need money to hold off the bad, whether it's people, times, or choices. And some other things that you don't need to know about."

Bucky nodded. He was fine with not knowing everything. What he did know was almost too much. He turned to Steve. "You really are unleashing an army of attack geese across the Kingdom."

"Yeah," he said with a fond smile. "You came pretty close to guessing it."

"No, Steve. I didn't. I don't think anyone would. I don't think anyone could." He shook his head. "How many people know about this?"

"There's a lot of us working on it," Steve said. "And there's more than that who know about it. Exact numbers…" He trailed off with a one-shouldered shrug. "That's a complicated question."

"How many stories are there?' Natasha asked.

There were too many stories. Too many to count. Bucky wondered how many were _this._ Taken and turned into something else. Taken and twisted into something _good_.

Then he stared out the window, where the fluffy cloud-ground was just visible, and wondered if maybe they'd _always_ been this. Who would know? _Who would know?_

He turned his head and Steve was watching him. Concern, caution, something he didn't know how to identify. He smiled reassurance and watched it fade into calm contentment.

"What can I do to help?"

*    *    *

The strangling grip around Steve's heart had a name now. He'd had his suspicions when Bucky had—at Steve's word—sat himself down and leaned against his chest while they'd waited for his beanstalk to grow. When he'd wrapped his arms around Bucky and felt him fall asleep.

He'd been grateful Sam and Nat had let it pass basically unremarked when there were a lot of things they could have said, because it had felt…important.

Even if he hadn't known why. (Maybe he'd known why. Maybe he'd known exactly why and just hadn't been willing to see it. Not then, not when Bucky didn't know the whole story.)

But he knew now, he knew the name, he knew _why._ It had become perfectly clear when he'd folded his hand around Bucky's, reminding him that whatever he'd done for Pierce, he'd had a reason. It was love. Simple as that, and who knew how long for; he was in love with Bucky.  

There were worse things to be. Bucky was brave and beautiful and trusted him. And yes, he was carrying a load of guilt from what Pierce had done to him, some of it his, most of it Pierce's, but that was no different from Steve. And he could help Bucky carry it. Steve _wanted_ to help him carry it.

If Bucky still wanted to stay. Yes, he'd said he wanted to help, but that had been in the moment, on the spot. Steve needed to make sure.

"We should probably talk," he said to Bucky after Sam and Nat had left.

Bucky gave him a startled look. "About?"

"About whether you still want to stay here." They walked down the hallway, Steve leading the way into the kitchen. "After hearing all the that."

Bucky stopped in the doorway, standing at the top of the pair of steps. "Do you want me to go?" he asked, sounding confused and a little bit hurt. "I thought you liked having me here. I thought the whole point of the beanstalk was so that I could stay."

"No, Bucky. That's not what I meant. But I know none of that was what you were expecting." He grabbed the kettle, to have something to do with his hands, and started filling it at the water barrel. "So if you've changed your mind, if you'd rather go to one of the places Sam and Nat found for you, there'd be no hard feelings."

"Steve."

He turned around. Bucky was watching him intently.

"Do you want me to stay or go?"

 _Stay. You have to stay._ "It's your decision. I'm not going to tell you what to do."

He stepped down one step. "Stay or go?"

Steve made a helpless gesture, slopped water over the floor, and put the kettle down. "Bucky."

Voice soft, he said, "I need to know, Steve."

Heart pounding, he said, "Stay. I want you to stay."

"You want me to stay."

He nodded.

"Come here." He pointed at the spot in front of the steps.

Eyes never leaving Bucky's, Steve moved to stand in front of him. Bucky's extra height put them right at eye level. Bucky searched his face and then gently touched his cheek. "I want to stay. Not here, I don't really care if it's here. I figured out sometime between last night and right now that I only care if it's with you."

Steve let out a soft sigh as Bucky leaned forward and kissed him. It wasn't demanding, it was an offer, slow and warm, and Steve accepted, returned it with interest as he slipped his arms around Bucky and pressed closer and they lost themselves for a while.

Eventually, they pulled apart. Steve smiled, eyes crinkling, and Bucky grinned.

"You're okay with staying here, though," Steve asked. "Right?"

"Yeah, I like the cloud-fluff. The real ground was hard on my ass," Bucky replied, and Steve laughed.

*    *    *

Two days later, he and Bucky were holding hoes, and they each had a bag of beans hooked on their belts as they surveyed the stretch of clouds where the bean plants used to be. Steve had spent a few hours sorting through the beans they'd shelled, picking the ones he'd—no, _they'd_ , and that sent a thrill down his spine—use to grow the next crop. There were subtle differences between the magic beans and the ordinary ones, and it took a practiced eye to see them.

"You know," Bucky said. "I've never planted anything in my life."

"It's pretty simple. I'll mark the clouds, then you just till to the end of the line, drop the seeds in every two inches or so, then cover them up. Then we'll give them a good watering and leave them to grow."

"Just till to the end of the line?"

"Yup, to the end of the line."

"That's easy enough."

"I told you."

Bucky rolled his eyes, then ducked closer and planted a kiss on him. Steve startled a little with surprise, then reached out and reeled Bucky in, hoe and all, and kissed him properly, the hand not occupied with farming equipment sliding up into his hair. When they broke apart, Bucky was grinning. "Planting things is a lot more fun than I thought."

"I think it depends on the company."

Bucky lightly trailed his fingers down the back of Steve's neck, making him shiver. "We'll probably need to go for a swim after this."

Steve smiled slowly. "I'd say it's a given."

"Then mark that line so I can till to the end of it."


	6. Chapter 6

Bucky had meant it when he offered his help to Steve, Sam, and Natasha, but he hadn't been sure what he could actually _do_ ; he didn't have much in the way of skills. He'd spent most of his life doing odd jobs and light labour and running messages—at least before he'd become Pierce's thief.

The small farming skills he'd learned from Steve were at least useful to Steve, but what Steve and Natasha and Sam had described to him was… They were talking about changing the world. He really didn't know what he could offer them.

Even if they'd needed a thief, he couldn't, _wouldn't_ , give them that.

Except Steve seemed to need him. Not just personally, although that had been a revelation. Of course, like the beans Steve grew being the magic beans that turned into beanstalks, maybe it shouldn't have been. People didn't usually hold other people all night just for the hell of it. Bucky possibly should have figured out there were feelings behind it. It just hadn't occurred to him, because why would it? Why would he ever dream that Steve might be looking at him and feeling that same pull Bucky felt when he looked at Steve.

Until that moment in the kitchen, when it had hit him that yes, maybe Steve _did_ feel it.

But Steve seemed to need him for more than just the personal. He was opening up to Bucky, showing him everything he'd been so careful to keep hidden. The carefully marked map in his study, the correspondence that arrived from all over, relayed by Sam and delivered by geese (in backpacks, and whatever happened in his life, Bucky was never going to get over geese wearing backpacks). He talked to Bucky about their plans, asked Bucky's opinion.

Bucky was surprised to discover he _had_ opinions. And suggestions. And information, because it never paid to stop paying attention when Pierce was talking, Pierce or his men, and Bucky had been forced to spend a lot of time in their proximity.

The pride that welled up in him when he could contribute something helpful, valuable, the warmth that bubbled up in his heart—it was a good feeling. It was better than good. Just like the evenings spent tucked up next to Steve and, eventually, the nights spent curled next to him when they abandoned keeping separate rooms.

The morning Steve said, "I need you to stay in our room today," made Bucky blink at him.

"Sure. Why?"

"There's a Jack coming. Or there should be." Steve grimaced. "I have no idea what would happen if you both saw me at the same time."

"So I need to stay in our room." Bucky nodded. "I get it. Makes sense. Have you got anything you want me to work on?"

"Not right now. Take the day off. Grab something to read." He grinned slyly. "Want me to get Sam to keep you company?"

"No," he said pointedly. "Thank you." They had a truce of sorts, but he was sure if they had to spend the day locked in a room together, she'd eat him alive.

Steve laughed at him.

He could hear Steve's bellow from inside the castle, feel the walls shake, and even now it still woke a faint thrill of fear down his spine, but he knew no one was in danger. Whoever that Jack was, they were going end up doing good things.

When Steve came back, Bucky pulled him down on the bed, wrapped him up tight and kissed him until he was a melted puddle of Steve, the tension he'd walked in with completely gone.

"I'm glad you're here," Steve said, voice muffled as he pressed his face into Bucky's hip.

He ran his fingers through Steve's hair. "I'm glad I'm here, too."

*    *    *

Things continued on. There were no Jacks, but a crop of goslings hatched, and they were surprisingly cute for demon birds—until they learned to hiss at Bucky. He blamed Sam. The goose, not the person; the person, however, found it hilarious.

They had two visits from Sam, one with Natasha, and neither had any reaction where he could see it to the change in his and Steve's relationship. He kept expecting to be threatened, to be warned, to be… _something_ , if he did wrong by their friend, but it didn't happen.

Of course, the thought of doing wrong by Steve, of hurting Steve, made every part of him ache so maybe they didn't need to. Maybe he was doing a perfectly good job on that front all by himself.

One evening Bucky was milking Rose, resting his forehead on her flank like he always did. Steve was sitting outside her shed on an upturned bucket, sewing up an unravelled sleeve on Bucky's shirt. Bucky tilted his head to watch him. The light painted his hair blazing gold and he was frowning in concentration as he fought with the needle.

It rushed through him, overwhelming and obvious all at once, that he loved him. "Hey, Steve?"

"What is it?"

He didn't look up and Bucky smiled so wide his face hurt. "I love you. Just thought you should know."

Steve's head shot up. He stared at Bucky, then smiled fit to match. "Hey, Buck?" he said, softly, so softly, "I love you, too."

He put down the shirt and made his way into the shed to crouch next to Bucky and they pressed their foreheads together, Steve's arm curling around Bucky. His other hand shot out, quick as lightning, to catch the bucket when Rose, deeply unimpressed, gave it a sharp kick and turned her head to glare.

"I guess goats don't care about love," Bucky murmured.

 "Rose has her own ideas about what's important."

"So do I," Bucky said, and kissed him, ignoring Rose's disgruntled grumble.

*    *    *

It was only a few days later when Bucky, bucket of milk in hand, Rose bounding back to her emerald-grassed field, came face to face with a goose in a backpack.

"What?" he said to it. It was first thing in the morning. It was too early for geese in backpacks, even if there was only one of them.

It hissed and waddled closer.

"Yes, fine." He set the bucket down, unbuckled the pack as quickly as he could, scooped up the bucket and walked away.

There was a honk. A demanding, offended honk.

"I've been here too long. I'm starting to understand the geese." He looked over his shoulder. "Thank you, okay? I'm very grateful. And appreciative. And, uh, your feathers are looking very nice today."

The goose honked again, sounding satisfied, and flapped off.

"Ugh."

When he got inside the castle, he put the milk in the pantry, washed his hands, kept going down to their bedroom, kicked off his shoes, and flopped across Steve.

"Oooof."

"Here." Bucky dropped the pack next to him and shuffled around until he was lying completely on top of him.

"Thanks?"

"Your geese are needy."

Steve hummed under his breath while he fiddled with the pack, pulled out a message, cracked it open and read. "Technically not my geese, if you're talking about the one that brought this."

"Bet it came from here originally."

"Yes..." he reluctantly admitted.

"Then my point stands." He shuffled higher, kissed him, then dropped his head on his chest.

"Your point aside, do you want to go to a festival?"

"Sure."

"Not even going to ask what it's for?"

Bucky shrugged, then propped his head on his hand. "You wouldn't ask me to go if it wasn't safe. You'd never take me somewhere I'd be in danger, somewhere there was a chance Pierce or his men would find me. You wouldn't ask me to go if you didn't think I'd have at least some fun. I'll be safe with you at a festival. What do I care what it's for?"

For long seconds, Steve was still and silent and then he surged up off the bed and caught Bucky's face between his hands, kissing him deeply, rolling them both so Bucky was underneath him. Bucky pressed up to meet him, wrapping his arms and legs around him and it was a long time before either of them worried about anything but each other.

*    *    *

Steve's clothes were a little loose on Bucky, even with what they'd done to take them in, but he looked good in Steve's best set of festival finery. Steve was wearing his second-best set. It was pure selfishness that had made him give Bucky the best: Bucky looked _good_ in them and Steve enjoyed seeing them on Bucky more than he would wearing them himself.

Which he'd explained to Bucky, and it'd been fun watching his ears go pink.

Now they were standing together at the edge of a hole Steve had made in the clouds, staring far down into the darkness.

"You're going to trust me on this, right?"

"Yeah, Steve. I am."

It was probably wrong that hearing it sent a burst of warmth down his spine.

"When I tell you to step with me, step with me. I won't let you fall."

Bucky gave him a slightly worried look but nodded.

Steve dug a small divot next to the hole and dropped in a handful of magic beans. Then he pulled Bucky close and wrapped his arms around his waist. In no time at all, the beanstalk began twisting out of the ground, already thicker than his chest. The questing tip twisted, as if it could sense the hole in the clouds, and it twined like a goose neck, heading for the open air below the clouds. Already, giant leaves were starting to sprout, long thin vines bursting free to wave in the air.

Steve had never done this with someone else before, but he'd done it on his own enough, he knew it was safe. He held out a hand and the twining vines wrapped around his arm.

"Come on," he said to Bucky, and stepped onto the largest leaf as it went past. He felt Bucky pause, felt him pull back, then he gathered himself and pushed forward, putting his feet next to Steve's, and they were balanced on the leaf. The vines curled around Bucky, twining around his waist, holding him fast, and the leaf was firm and steady under their feet as the stalk grew wider, bigger, stronger, the leaf expanding under them as the beanstalk unfurled towards the ground.

Bucky sucked air in through his teeth and Steve ran a soothing hand down his back. "It's all right."

"Is it?"

"It is, I promise. Relax. I'd never do anything that would hurt you." He kissed Bucky's temple, soft, gentle. "Remember?"

Muscle by muscle, he felt Bucky relax until he was leaning against him. Steve stroked a hand up his chest, cradled his jaw, kissed him sweetly and Bucky turned into him, but he pulled back. "No, you should watch this."

Steve had aimed the beanstalk for a specific spot in the woods and the dark, where it would go unnoticed, but the festival, the town, all the signs of life and people lit up against the night were clearly visible and they were nothing Bucky would have seen before. Steve didn't want him to miss it.

"It's beautiful," Bucky said quietly. "Everything looks so clean when all you can see is the light." The cynicism lacing his voice made Steve bend his head and nuzzle Bucky's ear.

"These lands are different from what you're used to. I think you'll like what you see, even when you see it up close."

Bucky didn't answer, and Steve didn't say anything else, the rest of the journey made in silence. When the tip of the stalk touched the ground, they had to coax the vines to let go before they could jump off, and he felt Bucky startle when Natasha's voice rang out, "Sweet talkers like that, I'm surprised they ever let you go."

"Hey, Nat," Steve said with a laugh. "Thanks for meeting us."

"I was taking a load into the festival anyway, so it wasn't a problem. Bucky," she added giving him a friendly nod.

"Natasha," Bucky said, lifting a hand in greeting.   

"The cart's this way," she said and started walking. They followed.

"Sorry, I should have mentioned Nat was going to meet us," Steve said.

"It's fine," Bucky replied. "I was just surprised. Better surprised than having to walk all the way from the middle of nowhere."  

As they followed Nat to the cart, Steve was surprised to hear her say, "It's not quite the middle of nowhere."

The cart had lanterns mounted on the front, illuminating the horse, a short, heavy dun with a black mane that stuck up every which way.  She snorted when she saw them, like she was asking what had taken so long. Nat patted her neck, let off the brake, then swung up into the cart, settling herself on the bench that ran along the front and gathering up the reins.

"It looks like the middle of nowhere," Bucky said as he pulled himself up into the cart. Steve followed, glancing into the back. It was filled with tanned skins and fur. Deer, from the looks of them, and wolf.

Nat patted the bench next to her. With a glance at Steve, Bucky sat, and Steve sat next to him.

"It's not," Nat said. "There's a castle out here, but you can only find it if the Beast lets you."

Bucky turned to stare at her. So did Steve. She clucked to the horse and she trotted off, the cart bumping over the forest floor.

"You know the story, don't you, Bucky?" Nat asked.

"Story?"

"About the Beast and the curse and the castle," she said, low-voiced and challenging.

"Nat," Steve said warningly. He'd been surprised when Nat had told Bucky she was a beastling. He'd suspected someday she might follow it up, but he'd seen how this could go, how vicious this could get if it went wrong, and Bucky didn't deserve that.

"It's okay," Bucky said and Steve subsided, watchfully. "I know _a_ story," he went on, carefully. "I don't think I know your story. Any more than I knew Steve's story even though I thought I did." He paused, then added, "I'd like to know it if you want to tell me."    

Steve reached over and caught his hand, sliding their fingers together.

"Well," she said after a long silence. "Maybe I can see what Steve sees in you."

"Thank you?"

She smiled. Steve had a lot of experience with Nat's smiles—the real, the fake, the ones she gave people before she slid a dagger through their ribs—and this one, small as it might be, was real.

The bumpy forest floor gave way to a trail and Nat guided the horse onto it before she spoke again.  

"The story's old, who knows what it really was before it started being told and told again. But there is a Beast, and he was cursed, but he was happy enough. It meant he was left alone to study and do his experiments, until one day a travelling merchant got lost in his woods in the dead of winter."

Bucky nodded, but didn't speak, didn't interrupt. Nat had the cadence of a storyteller hitting her stride and even though Steve knew the story, he found himself being drawn in.

"The Beast wasn't interested in the merchant, but he didn't want to let the man die, so he let the castle to be found so the man could take refuge. But the merchant tried to steal from him, and when confronted by the Beast—and he says he was very polite—the merchant _offered up_ his daughter if only the Beast would spare him."

Nat stopped talking and slowed the horse to a stop as the trail came to an end along with the forest, a road stretching left to right. With a gentle tug of the reins, she turned the horse to the left and clucked twice, the horse speeding to a fast trot on the smooth surface.

"Now the Beast didn't want a young woman cluttering up his castle and interfering with his experiments, but he also thought that someone whose father would sacrifice her to a Beast to save his own skin before he'd even been threatened might be safer with him. So he said yes, send her to me. And that's how the Beast ended up with a foster daughter."

There was a beat of silence, then Bucky said, "A beastling."

Nat inclined her head.

"Is that why…" He trailed off apologetically.

"You might as well ask."

"Is that why your teeth are so sharp?"

She grinned at him, showing very sharp teeth.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Again, I can almost see what Steve sees in you." She guided the horse to turn right as they reached a crossroads. "But sadly for the poor Beast, that wasn't the end of it. Because his first beastling soon turned into more beastlings, most of them daughters, some of them sons."

"More lost merchants?"

"Not quite," she replied flatly. "For boys and girls like your sister, pretty young things that powerful men take an interest in, there's not always an escape. There's not always a brother who'll sell himself to the devil to save them."

Bucky went tense beside him and Steve rubbed a soothing thumb across his knuckles.  

"That's not a criticism, Bucky." Nat's voice went gentle in a way Steve wasn't used to hearing. "We all know what would have happened to her if you hadn't."

After a moment, Bucky nodded.

"For those boys and girls, with parents who can't save them any other way, if they happen to get lost in the Beast's forest, take refuge in his castle, and the Beast demands their child—what can they do? Everyone knows the story and that's how the story goes. It's just an unfortunate twist of fate that's put their child out of reach of the powerful man who wants them."

"I don't know whether that's brilliant or terrible." Bucky rubbed his face. "I think it's both. Terrible that it's needed. Brilliant that you could. How does your Beast cope?"

"He taught us a lot of alchemy. More hands to help with experiments."

Bucky laughed softly. "Practical."

"We don't get many beastlings any more, though. Not from here. It's different now. These lands have changed." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "This is where I was born and when my parents sent me to a Beast because I was less valuable than the possibility of danger, no one cared. It's doubtful anyone noticed. Now, if someone's child disappeared questions would be asked. Baroness van Dyne protects all her people, commoner and noble alike.  

"Was she one of your Jacks?" Bucky asked.

"She didn't climb the beanstalk," Steve replied. "That wasn't her story, but yes. She's one of ours."

*    *    *

Bucky wandered the festival in something like a daze, alone because Steve had excused himself to go meet with someone. He was rapidly coming to believe that Steve and Natasha—beastling, she was the daughter of a Beast—were right. This place wasn't anything like what he was used to. The festival—which was celebrating Baroness van Dyne's betrothal—was much like other festivals. There were merchants and food and drink, there were minstrels and dancing. There were people celebrating and people celebrating too much and singing and shouting.

What made it different were the guards. They were strolling in pairs, or stationed in pairs near obvious potential trouble spots, but no one seemed afraid of them. They smiled and were smiled at in turn. They laughed at the antics of obviously drunken festival goers. When a very drunk woman ran up to one and tried to put a flower crown on her helm Bucky had braced himself, but all that had happened was the guard had bowed her head and _let the woman do it._ And then stood there with the flower crown on her helm.

That...would never have happened with the guard in his town. With any of the guard in any of the towns in any of Pierce's lands. If she'd been lucky she would have been arrested. If she'd been unlucky, she would have gotten a mailed fist to the face and then been arrested. Except it would never have happened because anyone and everyone would have known better than to try. The guard were treated with respect and deference at all times; doing otherwise would mean consequences no one wanted to deal with.  

The more he wandered, the more it seeped into him that the people were different, too. They were happier, freer. Less guarded. Maybe it was just the festival, the drink and the food and the celebration, but he didn't think so.

Steve had been right. It was cleaner here.

"Hey." Steve slipped up behind him and pulled him into a backwards hug.

Bucky leaned into him, tilting his head back so he could see his face. "I love you."

Steve's slow smile was everything. "I love you, too." He kissed the top of Bucky's head. "Seen everything you want to see?"

"I think so. You do what you need to do?"

"I did. The couple are getting an anonymous wedding present." Steve kissed his ear, voice low as he added, "One solid gold sculpture in the shape of two geese touching beaks. _Very_ ugly—the necks make a heart—and conveniently shaped for breaking into chunks as needed. Her soon to be husband's a good man, but his Barony's poor, so this will help. No hard choices to make if they've got a gold reserve to draw on."

"Steve." He had to stop and swallow hard to get the words out. "You're something else."

Steve hugged him closer. "Someday I hope it's going to be like this everywhere, Buck. I don't know if it's possible, but…" He shrugged. "All we can do is keep trying."

"Hells, Steve." Bucky turned in his arms and pressed up to kiss him. "I told you I loved you, right?"

"You mentioned it, yeah."

"Good."  


	7. Chapter 7

Bucky wouldn't have thought it was possible to learn this much about the power structures of the three Kingdoms that Steve and the rest of them worked in, but thanks to Steve his head was stuffed full of them. He wasn't as bad as Steve, though. If anyone of _any_ importance died Steve knew who their heir would be and how the change would ripple through the rest of the Kingdom.

He understood a lot better why he'd never beat Steve at chess, and why he never, ever would.

Bucky was leaning over the chess board, giving it a good try, when there was a thump against the castle door, followed by a, "Hells!"

"Sam?" Steve called, jumping up from the chess board and hurrying down the hall. Bucky followed, because that thump hadn't sounded healthy.

Sam met them halfway and grabbed Steve's shoulders. "Rumlow's dead."

The effect on Steve was instantaneous. His whole body stiffened, and he growled out, "When."

"Two days ago. Got his head bit clean off by a dragon and his men burned to a crisp."

"Brelyzyn?"

"Got it in one."

"I knew poking around those mountains trying to get her gold was going to come back to bite him."

Sam stifled a snort.

Steve didn't even crack a smile. "We don't have much time. If Pierce finds another heir before—"

"Why do you think I'm here. Nat's gathering everyone up and sending the word."

"Go. I'll meet you at her castle."

"Steve. We've had this planned for years. It's going to work."

"I know. It has to."

Sam dragged him into a quick hug, then whirled and ran for the door. There was a puff of feathers and he was a swan before he hit the end of the hall, took flight as soon as he cleared the doorway.

Steve whirled to face Bucky. His eyes were blazing fire, burning behind the blue.

"Do you want to come? You're not part of the plan, but I'm not leaving you behind if you want in on this."  

"Steve." Bucky stepped forward and reached out a hand, tentative in a way he'd never quite been, but he'd never quite seen this Steve before. "I don't know what's going on. Come to what? What plan."

Steve bared his teeth and caught Bucky's hand. Bucky expected a hard squeeze, half-expected it to hurt with that light in Steve's eyes, but Steve's touch was gentle as he folded his fingers around Bucky's. "It's time to kill Pierce."

*    *    *

There were variables they could plan for—and had. There were variables they'd had to leave to chance, and the one thing they'd never been able to plan for was where, precisely, Pierce would be when they came for him.

Worst case would be holed up in his castle. Best case would be riding to the hunt, unprepared for anything but an angry boar or a wounded deer.

In the end, _where_ didn't matter, as long as they could kill him before he named a new heir. With Rumlow dead and no blood relatives, the Council of Lords would decide who took his title and lands and there were only four possibilities. All were good men, and one was a Jack.

Pierce had to die and he had to die _now._  

The tournament was a sign from the gods. Or maybe it was coincidence. Either way, Pierce would be riding to attend with his retinue of knights, and they'd take it.

When Pierce and his knight rode through Gillyn Town and began the trek up the winding hill on the other side, they found themselves closed in on all sides by a small army.

Nat's beastlings, their fiercest fighters, were on the leading edge, and he'd pit any one of them against two of Pierce's knights. There were common fighters and common folk, from all over Pierce's lands and beyond. There were Jacks who'd become part of their work standing side by side with stories come to life, more than one with bark or scales or fur. People who'd been hurt by Pierce, minor nobles and commoner alike, and people whose lives he'd never touched, but they were here because making things better was what what they _did_ , and removing Pierce would go a long way towards making things better.

Together, they numbered in the hundreds and they closed ranks to cut off the road behind, stretching out to block the road before. Nat and Sam were at the edge of the crowd, Bucky between them.

Pierce reined his horse to a halt and motioned to his men. "Clear out this rabble, please," he called and several knights exchanged uneasy glances, but began to unsheathe their swords, kneeing their horses forward.

Before they could act, Steve stepped onto the road directly in front of Pierce.

"I wouldn't do that," he called. He had a plain sword on his hip, a blank shield on his back, was wearing chain and leather armour instead of plate, but he was confident Pierce would recognise him. "Some of these people could really hurt you. And some of them would really like to."

Pierce raised a fist and his knights halted. "Sir Rogers," he said, no shock, no surprise, like they'd met while out for a casual ride.

"It's just Steve these days."

"Steve, then." Pierce leaned forward, his horse shifting under him, and he absently patted her neck. "It's good to see you."

"I doubt that."

Pierce smiled. "I did wonder what had happened to you."

"When Rumlow," anger flashed in Pierce's eyes and Steve couldn’t help thinking warm thoughts about the dragon who'd bitten Rumlow's head off, "and his men couldn’t kill me?"

Pierce's noncommittal hum could have meant anything.

"If I told you where I'd been you wouldn't believe me. If I thought you cared, I might tell you anyway, just to see the look on your face."

Next to Sam, Nat already gone to slip among Pierce's knights with the rest of her beastlings, Bucky hid a smile. It lifted Steve, filled him with a breath of sunlight to counter the chill radiating from Pierce.

"Try me?"

"Oh, I intend to."

"Are you still on about that." Pierce leaned back and stretched in the saddle, rolling his shoulders, the pommel of his sword, just visible over his shoulder, catching the light. "You know, I'm prepared to forgive you for challenging me. You were a young man facing your first taste of real fighting. Discovering what it's like, that can take people in different ways. I never did hold it against you."

Rage sparked high. He took a step forward, fists clenched, saw Pierce's flash of satisfaction and knew it was exactly what he wanted. He wanted Steve angry. He wanted Steve raging, so he could dismiss everything he was saying as irrational fury.

He wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

"Well, that's generous of you, but I held, I hold, it against you. Your men, your _knights_." He let his gaze drift over those knights, some faces familiar, some faces new, and didn't bother to hide his contempt. Some glared back; some looked away. He marked each and every one. "Men sworn to protect the people of your land killed them instead. When I called for justice, you did nothing. I challenged you to a duel, you accepted, and now—"

The sound of cantering hoofbeats was loud and he turned to see a group of riders appear on the crest of the hill. They drew to a stop, horses tossing their heads, making their bits jangle.

Even at this distance, he knew who they were. Baroness van Dyne, accompanied by her fiancée, Baron Lang, and a handful of knights. Viscount Barton, alone, but with his distinctive longbow over his shoulder. The bard, Luis, and Steve wanted to punch the air in triumph, because whatever happened, today's tale would be carried far and wide.

And standing a little apart, someone they'd never dreamed would come, sitting atop his infamous chestnut destrier, Hofund, was the Eyes of the King. Sir Heimdall.

They didn't come closer. None called out. Whatever happened, they wouldn’t interfere, but word had been sent and they'd come to bear witness.

Steve turned back to Pierce. "This can only end one way," he said quietly. "You accepted my challenge, so fight me. Everything I've heard, you're good and I'm six years out of practice. Maybe you'll win. But if you don't fight, everything you care about dies here."

Pierce could still refuse, but with the new arrivals, he'd forever be branded dishonourable by people who _mattered_. He'd still be a lord, but it would be meaningless, because in their eyes he'd be as worthless as common folk were to him.

Pierce showed his teeth and Steve knew he had him. "Very well, Rogers. You'll have your duel. And when you die, the worms will have your corpse."

He dismounted and handed his horse's reins to the groom who hurried to take them. There was a rush of movement and then they were standing in a circle of road and grass, bounded by Pierce's mounted retinue and the people who'd accompanied Steve, all mixed up together. He found Bucky in the crowd, and Bucky pressed his fist over his heart, never taking his eyes off Steve.

He knew Nat's beastlings would be on Pierce's people by now, the only reason he didn't need to worry about a crossbow bolt in the back. Pierce would deny responsibility, claim it had been the personal action of a fiercely loyal man, but Steve would still be dead.

Steve unhooked his shield from his back, hefting its weight, then drew his sword. He'd lied, he wasn't completely out of practice, but it had only been the last few days. His body remembered, though. It remembered the sword. It remembered the shield. Without the suffocating weight of plate, he could move so much faster and smoother, and he'd seen Pierce fight. Pierce was good, Pierce was a killer, but Steve knew he was better.

Pierce's sword was long and light, and he didn't use a shield, but his armour was fine chain. He swung his sword through the air, limbering up, then met Steve in the centre of the circle.

Tradition called for saluting an honourable opponent before a duel. They both waited, then simultaneously realised neither of them were going to. Steve couldn't stop a half-smile, just a twist at the corner of his mouth, and Pierce matched it, then Pierce was lunging forward, sending Steve backpedalling as he raised his shield.

Pierce was fast, but so was Steve and it was lunge and parry and block, the two of them shifting and turning, getting each other's measure as they settled into the fight. Steve turned, trying to lure Pierce into opening himself to a strike, and the sun hit Pierce's sword.

It glinted, gleamed, in a way metal didn't. In a way metal shouldn't. Startled, he faltered, then leapt back, raising his shield to block. The edges were coated in something. Poison. It had to be. Suddenly Pierce's reputation with the sword took on a whole new tenor.  

Steve backed away, blocking his flurry of strikes, each one aimed not at stabbing or maiming, but at cutting, at slicing Steve's skin, and he _knew_ he was right. He could see it in Pierce's eyes: if that blade opened his skin he'd die, and Pierce _wanted_ Steve's death.

Not as badly as Steve wanted his.

Steve switched tactics, used his shield as a weapon, and punched the edge into Pierce's gut. It took him by surprise, knocked him back, knocked the breath out of him, and Steve followed up with a vicious stab to his leg. Pierce stumbled to one knee. Steve blocked Pierce's sword and dropped his own, grabbed Pierce's fists, and forced the sword around until it was hovering against Pierce's cheek.

Pierce's eyes were cold. "I can give you whatever you want."

"I really don't think you can," Steve said and _pushed._ Skin parted under the glinting blade, blood flowing across the metal and down Pierce's cheek, then Steve wrenched the sword from Pierce's hands and tossed it aside.

Pierce stayed on his knees. Steve couldn't see any fear in him.

"It is fast?" Steve asked.

"Fast enough."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not really. It's meant to slow you down." He smiled. "Make you easier to kill."

"I guess it didn't work."

"I guess it didn't."

Steve stepped back and picked up his sword, carefully setting down his shield.

"If you kill me like this, when I'm helpless, doesn't that make you just as bad as me?"

"No." It took all his strength, and the shock of steel hitting bone jarred his arms, but with one clean stroke, he cut Pierce's head from his shoulders. He stepped back as it rolled across the turf and the body listed to the side and fell.

The silence was louder than a scream.

He expected to feel triumphant. All he felt was relieved. That it was done. That it was over. That the path had been cleared for something better. He lifted his head and found Bucky watching him, offering him all the strength and love he needed.

He let himself fall into Bucky's eyes, then gathered it all up, everything Bucky was offering, and broke the silence, voice ringing like a gathering storm.

"Six years ago I challenged Pierce to a duel and he accepted. By the laws of this land today that duel took place and he lost. His life was the price he paid."

Sam called out, "Witnessed," a voice he didn't recognise echoed him, then another and another and it rose through the crowd.  

Steve held up a hand, bloody sword clutched in the other. They quieted. "Any oaths of fealty given to him are ended. Whoever takes Pierce's place will be better. And I believe this land can and will be better. Every one of you, whether you served Pierce willingly or not, all of you can choose to be better." He could see knights from Pierce's retinue turning and riding off, but some stayed. Some were listening. "Pierce is dead. Let everything he stood for die with him."

"Witnessed," roared out from the crowd. Steve bowed his head as they surged forward and the watchers on the hilltop turned and rode away.

In the joyous chaos that followed, Sam and Nat helped him make his escape, Bucky close at his heels.

When they found a quiet spot behind a tree, a tree Steve half-suspected had been walking around a few hours earlier, he sighed.

Bucky cupped his face in both hands, peering into his eyes, then kissed him once, a light brush. "You look exhausted."

He _was_ exhausted, weary down to the heart of him. "I feel like I look." 

"Go," Sam said, looking particularly prince-like. "We can take care of things here."

"Are you sure? You might—"

"Steve," Nat said. "We'll be fine. Pierce is dead. Go home and enjoy it."

He let his head fall and laughed a little. "Right. Okay." He held out his hand to Bucky, who caught it and held on tight. "Let's go home."  

*    *    *

The Council of Lords didn't name the Jack as the new lord of what had been Pierce's lands, but they did name one of the other three, a good man who'd work hard to undo the damage Pierce had done to his lands and his people.

Word came that there were some high-ranked nobles asking none too friendly questions about where Steve had gone, who didn't seem to care how legal the duel might have been. Bucky wished them all the luck finding him here in the cloud kingdom.

He still had trouble believing Pierce was dead; it was too much like a dream.

Steve seemed relieved it was over. "It's been hanging over me for a long time," he said, kissing the top of Bucky's head. "You know there's nothing stopping you from going back home, now."

"Except I'm already there," Bucky replied. "Hard to go back to somewhere you're already at."

Steve smiled and kissed him again, and then again, and once more for good measure.

Pierce was dead, but their work wasn't done. There were still beans to grow and geese to raise and soon enough there'd be another Jack to scare, but there was time to take a break.

So that's what they did.


	8. Epilogue

Even breaks must come to an end, and the cloud kingdom was once more playing host to a Jack, something it hadn't done since before there'd been some…fundamental shifts in perception.

Steve knew there was a problem when the castle stayed small and so did he. He had to call Bucky twice before he answered, and then he just yelled out, "What?"

"Can you get out here?"

Obviously surprised, since he'd been carefully staying in their room, just like last time, he did, only to come face to face with the equally surprised Jack—a young woman, whose long red hair framed her startled expression.

"Is there any chance you could tone it down?" Steve asked, watching the two of them with bemusement, because he knew what this had to be.

"What?"

"You're," Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, torn between wonder and laughter, "you're interfering with the magic."

The girl with the red hair looked back and forth between them. "Are you prisoners of the giant? Do you need help escaping?" Her eyes were fierce, her voice fiercer. "I'll help you. I won't leave you here."

Bucky looked from her, to Steve, back to her, back to Steve, and said, "Oh, _hells_."

Steve laughed and shook his head. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry," Bucky started, but Steve smiled, wide and bright and filled with love.

"I'm not." He was going to have to deal with the girl, figure something out, but he didn't care. It was worth it. Bucky loved him so much, saw him so strongly for who he truly was, that it overpowered even the castle's magic. The girl should have looked at Steve and seen a terrible giant; instead all she was seeing was Steve. Bucky's Steve. "I'm not," he said again, softer, and Bucky caught his hand, twining their fingers together.

Steve turned to the girl, whose fierceness was rapidly being tempered by a hefty dose of bafflement. "How do you feel about stories?" he asked, because with the red light sparking from her hands he was betting she was something of a story herself.

"What?"

"I've got this one," Bucky said, and then asked the girl, "What's your name?"

"There's no time for names. No time for _stories_. The giant could come back any minute!"

"You'll like this one, I promise," Bucky assured her. "Once upon a time an idiot climbed a beanstalk and fell in love with a giant. Only he wasn't a giant at all." He tilted his head to point at Steve. "He was changing the world. Want to help?"


End file.
